Getting to Machu Picchu the alternative way

Our 3-day trek started with an early bus journey for about 4 hours over a massively high mountain pass. The scenery was wonderful and strange and the height was dizzying. Also strange was the burning mountains we encountered along the way. We've heard mixed reasons between slash and burn land clearance and also pagan offering to get the rains started (the rainy season is about to commence here in Peru).

We scaled the pass and came a little way down the other side before disembarking and saddling up - the first day of our trek involved mountain biking downhill to our first night's accommodation. It seemed like a non-tiring way of getting somewhere with minimal effort. Of course the first bike El picked happened to have a wet seat: wet with a suspicious-smelling substance and was rather disgusted to acquire said smell. After a dousing with water and a new bike later, we were set to go.

Of course the road was unpaved and so required sitting on the brakes practically the whole way down. Well, in fact only if you were El and had a nasty bike accident aged 13 going round a corner too fast on a gravel road, so she ended up bringing up the rear of the group while everyone else belted down the road at great speed! It was great fun to watch the road go by, and scenery in glimpses, not least the suicidal butterflies that kept getting themselves tangled in the wheels of the bikes!


I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...tra la laa

Still, day one completed, we were all tired but happy (and incredibly dusty) and very ready for the large beer at the bar!

Day two saw a much more hardcore trek along one of the many Inca trails that lead to Machu Picchu. Not as famous as there were no Inca sites on the way, the trail took a wonderful path along the edge of a sheer mountain side and much of the original trail with supporting walls and paving was a wonderful walk, if bloody knackering.


Our path goes half way up the mountain on the right...gulp


The trail followed a hugely fast and charging river upstream, complete with huge boulders and we were only slightly unnerved by having to cross it in a makeshift cage-cum-ropes-and-pulley bridge 2 at a time. Gulp. On the other side though, waiting for us, was a wonderful hot spring resort with amazing hot water pools that certainly soothed away our aches and pains and was a definite high point upon which to end the day.



Unfortunately for El, she picked up something undesirable that day and spent most of the rest of the night in a close relationship with the toilet for various reasons and woke up feeling pretty miserable. Mind you there was a rooster howling from about 2am and sitting on our roof so Kieran didn't get much sleep either.



The third day involved a walk further upstream to a refreshing waterfall and on to a hydro-electric power station for lunch. El sat in the restaurant in the town from the previous night awaiting a bus to the hydro plant as walking was out of the question for her (feeling better by this point but feverish and weak). Kieran said the walk was very hot and a bit boring (no Inca trails today) so she didn´t miss much. The afternoon walk was along some railway tracks up to Aguas Calientes, the town just underneath Machu Picchu which was incredibly close by now. El, and a few others who had also been struck by the bug, caught the train leaving Kieran and team Reading (yes two of the girls were from our very own town - go Kate and Gemma!) to struggle up the railway tracks which are surprisingly hard to walk along.

Finally we all made it to Aguas Calientes and pretty much went straight to bed. They are waking us up at 4.30am tomorrow morning! Let's hope we get good sleep as the mozzie bites are killing us (scratch, scratch, scratch).