Oct 2005

Wow,

Since my last writing we have done so so much. What is written here after is a condensation of an email Rach has sent to everybody so if it all seems familar langauage that is why (I can´t be bothered to re-write the whole thing)

After Lima we flew to Cuzco (the gateway to the Inca Trail). Cuzco was very pretty - lots of orange roofed spanish looking buildings surrounding a gorgeous plaza with mountains surrounding it, unfortunately we didn`t get to enjoy it as this was the stage that set our first big nightmare. Cuzco is 3300m altitude and we flew in from sea level. We were warned about altitude sickness but didn`t think much of it, just walkng slowly for the first few hours to ensure we didn´t do anything too strenuous. The height of stuff didn´t really mean a lot to us until we realised that our last ski holiday with snowy mountains was only 1800m! Anyway, we hit the supermarket for some dinner and thats where Rach hit the floor! She suddenly came over all dizzy and ill feeling and had the most amazing urge to be sick. She started to run outside to be sick there when she collapsed and lost conciousness. I had the fright of my life! When she came round it was like a scene from the movies! "When the white light turned into focus I saw 5 heads peering down on me in a circle". It was horrible. So - we´ve now experienced a third world ambulance and hospital!?! Picture a romanian hospital in the 70´s and that´s what it was like! The doctors were very nice, though it was difficult to communicate with my limited Spanish medical vocab! They wanted to do blood tests but we refused when we realised we didn´t have our sterile needle kit with us! It took a fair few doctors before they actualy listened to the fact we had just flew in that day and it was altitude sickness. Anyway eventually when Rach´s fever had gone down they said we could go. Well there exact words were "It´s getting dark and this is a dangerous area of town so you should go soon!" Oh my God. We got the most official taxi we could find and clung to each other for dear life until we reached the safety of our hostel!

So....part 2 of our nightmare....the next day we had to deal with the aftermath of the incident. I left out the part that when Rach passed out she landed straight onto her teeth and smashed the front two! So we have now experienced a third world denist!! Actually in fairness it was probably the niceness denist experience she has had! It too was guess work trying to explain what had happened and what to do now and there was lots of gesturing! Anyway the result is that she now has a fixed brace to contend with at the age of 27!! She got to choose the colour though (pink) which is cool and I have a bit of paper in Spanish which I need to give to a dentist in Brasil to continue the treatment!

Part 3 our of nightmare came in the middle of the next night when I became sick with altitude sickness too! It was touch and go whether we´d be able to make our Inca Trail, which ironically we´d paid the non refundable balance for an hour before Rach collapsed!

Anyways, we managed to do the Inca Trail which was bloody hard but very cool and we´re hoping that we´ve used up all our bad luck for this trip already!

The Inca Trail had the most amazing scenery as it basically involved us climbing over a mountain a day for 4 days! The weather was beautiful. The highest peak being 4200m! It was knackering esp at that altitude as the air is really thin but we managed it. Our tour group was cool - we had 6 50 year old Americans which totally cracked me up and meant that I wasn´t the last one up the mountains everytime! We also had a couple other mid 20 Brits. The company was cool as when we got to the campsite for the night They´d already set up our tents and had dinner cooking. They welcomed us with a drink and had little bowls of water, soap and towels set up by the food tent for us to wash our hands. So sweet. The porters were amazing! We´d hear the call "porter" and everyone would move to the left only to see a small local guy with a mountain of stuff strapped to his back with a blanket (including gas cylinders etc) sprint by us! Mental!

The last day we reached Machu Picchu. After a 4am start it was like an uniffical race to get to the viewpoint at sunrise first! Only to find it was a white cloud/fog that greeted you! Funny. The cloud cleared later and Machu Picchu really was awe inspiring. I got some wicked photos.

So we are now in Arequipa (we flew here - which we´d booked in Spanish over the internet the night before!). Rach didn´t fany a 12 hour journey by bus over mountains and scary hairpin bends by crazy South American drivers! It´s a bizzare place here. It´s basically a city built in the middle of a desert which is in the middle of dusty mountains with a snow capped volcano behind us. We going on a 3 day canyon treking trip tomorrow which should be cool. We have just been enjoying chilling out here for the lat couple of days and enjoying good food and lovely beer (70p a bottle too!). We tried the local speciality today for lunch which was guinea pig - deep fried but with half it´s head still on so you got to see half its teeth! Nice but just like any bizzare meat it tasted just like chicken! (well actually crispy duck!).

Will wrtie more later

Dan