At one with nature and a million little black midges

After doing nothing and enjoying sunsets on the sea in the sunny town of Máncora, I said goodbye to Beth and headed up north to Ecuador, stopping for the day in Guayaquil to visit my auntie Katuska's family,  Marlene, Fransisco y Suzanne y Valeska. We had a lovely day of eating, going on a hospital tour of Guayaquil and in fact a bit of sleeping. Such lovely people, thank you!

I got a night bus to Quito, had breakfast with the lovely Sara who I had met at my uncle & aunt's wedding  when I was 7, and got another bus to Mindo...

El Gringo Alto 

The farm is owned and run by Ingo, a 6"9 German with a big beard who is one of those people for whom nothing is impossible, his lovely wife Genny and 3 lovely daughter, Elisa, Emily and Laia, 2 huge dogs, cats chickens, goats, llamas, sheep, and pigs. They have only been there just over a year so there is not only farming but a lot of building and new projects.

As well as feeding and watering the plants and animals (the pigs are my favourite) and cooking we work about 6 hours a day, doing a variety of things, many of which I never expected myself to be doing.. Like playing around with machetes clearing paths and forest land up the top to plant new banana and fruit trees and clear space to build new cabañas, planting trees, lots of weeding, collecting various animal poo to make poo-tea fertiliser, soaking mushroom logs, laying concrete around a newly built terrace, carrying planks of wood up and down a big old slope, building steps up the slope, and peeling and washing lots of crates of onions and potatoes.

So the work is really hard, but the evenings are lovely sat around the bonfire or playing cards, or even under the stars in the hot tub we heated up one day.

On Sunday we just did some wood shifting and then went for an adventure, found an unlikely path through the forest and down a big cliff drop, and then walked down the river bed for an hour and a half before hitting the road back home, very wet and exhausted followed by an afternoon of Bohnanza.

One of the roosters went loose in the top bit of the farm and one day decided to wait for me in one of the greenhouses I was watering. Managed to catch it, and the next day we ate it after watching it being beheaded and skinning it.... 

Two-year old Laia helping out

The farm also has beehives, and one night we were treated with some of the most deliciously rich honey I have ever tasted in my life..

And even I have not been spared from being bitten all over any bare flesh by the millions of little black flies that are everywhere..

Northward bound

After the Salkantay trek, Beth and I were both very eager to do nothing strenuous for a while. Which we are really bloomin good at. For the last 2 weeks or so we have been making our way up to the north of Peru...

Huacachina

Huacachina is a little oasis in the middle of the desert near Ica, it's one of those places that doesn't feel real. One night there was definitely enough, there are 2 activities to do there. we did a wee tour of local wineries where they make pisco and wine and such things. The first winery was really interesting, and the second one was just this man pouring us shots of different wines out of big jars with a bamboo stick. After that we went for a buggy ride over the dunes and went sliding down them on boards (lying on our fronts because standing up would have been really hard). We had heard loads of stories about people breaking their noses and their chins from it, and all was good until a guy in our group fell off his board on the last dune, he was fine, just a cut lip and flattened ray-bans, and also just his trousers fell down and he lead there for ages without noticing... Then we watched the sunset on the dunes and it was beautiful!

The press in the winery

Beth boarding down a dune

Paracas

After spending ages deciding where to go next, we settled with Paracas, a tiny town on the coast next to Pisco, where Peru's best liquor comes from.
It was so nice to see the sea again! We spent most of 2 days just looking at it drinking beer on a blanket, we made friends with a little girl Rocío who tried to plait my hair and also met a fair few strange men.
We also took a boat trip to Las Islas Ballestas, after waiting for the fog to clear up for ages. Have a look at the photos, islands covered in birds and sea lions and penguins...

Huanchaco

We were only planning on staying here 2 or 3 nights, but in the end we stayed about 6. We found the nicest hostel (Hostal Sudamerica) where we made some great friends, had philosophical debates over one of the best breakfasts, all had dinner together every night just like a wee family, played lots of Jenga and cards, enjoyed the sea and the sunset ever night and really chillaxed...

Everyone's favourite french ladies (apart toi maman)

Pauline's birthday party

The board of family members

Jenga creations with a future architect

The breakfast club

Trujillo

We made a little stop in Trujillo for the day, where we visited las Huacas de Moche, the temple of the sun and of the moon from the Moche era. A huge temple for sacrifices and ceremonies, every 100 years or so they would fill it up with bricks and build another temple on top, and now it has 6 floors and the paint is still almost intact from many many years ago! Trujillo has a lot of beautiful old houses to be visited and a cracking plaza (where we always spend a lot of time sitting and watching the world going past in the places we visit).

Cajamarca

We made a short stop here just for a day, arriving at 5am we went to the Incan thermal baths with a herby sauna as there really is nothing else to do at such an hour, it was such a nice way to start the day! We then went walked for an hour to ´las ventanillas de Otuzco´a pre-incan cemetery which was basically just a huge rock with a lot of holes in it where all of the important incas were buried. The walk completely tired us out so we spent the rest of the day walking round being tired, Beth spent a while figuring out exactly how many llama key rings she needed to buy before going home, and we made a cup of coffee, a pizza and a beer last about 7 hours. Then we hopped on another night bus to Piura right up in the north where we changed to Máncora...

Máncora: Beth and Emily's girly holiday by the beach

Máncora was made out to us to be this crazy touristy part town where there's not enough room to lie down on the beach, but luckily there are not many tourists at the moment so everyone has a reasonable bit of beach to enjoy. We have definitely been enjoying it for the last few days, getting very brown, eating lots of fruit and fish, meeting excellent people, dancing a lot and going swimming at dawn.

Midnight swim

And I don't think I have ever had so much sand in my hair and face

And so next on the agenda is saying goodbye to Beth sadly and heading up to Ecuador on Tuesday!

77km to Machu Picchu

The next destination for Beth and I was Cusco, from which we decided that we were strong and capable young women, enough so to do the 5 day Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu.....

Day 1 

Waiting in Cusco for the bus for a good hour in the freezing cold, where the only people who are about are people coming back from nights out, people going to Machu Picchu and one man selling big slices of cake.

After a 3 hour drive we stopped somewhere for breakfast and started the walk up into and around the mountains mainly on a windy road with many a horrendously steep short cut.

We stopped for lunch on the top of a hill. I was so impressed with the food; all the time they were carrying all the food and gas and everything on the back of a horse, and we ate like kings. And then had a good hour para la siesta!

The afternoon was a lot more chill, 4 or 5 more hours to our campsite which was inbetween these huge mountains and a big old glacier, and absolutely freezing. 

Lots more tasty food, then to bed at 8 trying to stay in the tent.

Day 2

After a night freezing and trying to sleep, we woke up at 5 and started walking bright and early. This was the hardest bit, 4 hours of straight uphill up really steep hill. It was really hard!

The top was so beautiful though, we were at 4 thousand-something and inbetween two glaciers. See photos.

The rest of the journey was all down hill on a really rocky path, definitely thought I was going to fall over and crack my head open a fair few times...

The afternoon felt really long, maybe because we were less motivated and took a lot of snack breaks. A nice cool beer was well deserved when we got to our campsite on the side of a mountain though,  with lots of tasty food and Yanif, everyone's favourite Israeli card game.

Day 3 

This walk was really nice and chill through the rainforest, a lot of landslide and steep drops and rivers to be crossed. After lunch we got the afternoon off walking and went to some volcanic thermal baths, the closest thing to clean I had been in a long long time (but it wasn't going to last long).

That evening there was a bonfire and a bit of a boogie around it...

Day 4

This is the first time in my life that I considered getting up at 7 to be a lie in. The morning consisted of walking along a dusty road in the boiling hot sun through this valley with hydroelectric industry. After walking for about 3 hours we gave up and hitched the restof the way and arrived atthe same time as the rest of the group who all had really long legs.

The rest of the day was a beatiful walk along the train tracks from Hidroelectrica to the Machu Picchu town of Aguas Calientes. At this one point we had to cross a bridge over the river, with train tracks and huge gaps  inbetween the wooden planks, above a huge drop into the river. Fearing for our lives, we bravely continued on. Then half way through, we saw 2 Peruvians casually walk on the footpath on the side of the train tracks which we had not seen. I almost fell off from laughing.

Because I walk slowly I lost my 3 chums I was walking with and went a different way to Aguas Calientes. When I got there I couldn't find anyone for ages and was just walking around this town hopelessly, really sweaty and hungry and tired.  Then I found them and we sat on the pavement for a few hours waiting for everyone else.

That night I had a shower and slept in a bed, I don't think I have ever appreciated those two things that much in my life.

Day 5

The big day. We woke up at 4 and started the walk in the dark to the entranceof Machu Picchu. It was a really peculiar situation, about 50-60 people waiting in the dark with flashlights and then being let through this big metal gate after having our tickets and passports checked, walking over this huge bridge and then the steps. Oh the steps. There were 1772 really steep steps. I have never sweated so much in my life. And then, arrived at the top after almost one hour of climbing we had to queue up to the next entrance gate behind all of these tourists who had just hopped off the bus up, all looking nice and clean and fresh and made up. 

Oooh I very almost lost my rag. Beth actually accidentally on purpose bumped into this one girl who was fully made up, wearing a tiny dress and was just being really irritating.

When we got up there (after a few more steps just for good measure) it was really foggy to start off with but then it cleared up and it was beautiful.

Our guide Walter gave us a wee tour and then we said goodbye (he was really great). Then, more steps? Yes indeed. After sitting down for a bit, I climbed Montaña Machu Picchu, which took twice as long as in the morning and the steps, which were even steeper, so much so that you had to go on all fours to be safe sometimes, really took it all out of me.

But it was really worth it, see the photos. And the way down also really left me in pain. 

Then, why not do another one? With everyone we climbed to the sun gate where the Inca trail enters Machu Picchu. And then, we were going to play hide and seek but I think no-one could any more, so we just walked down the 1772 steps back to Aguas Calientes. Ow ow ow.