I’m a failure. I’ve let you all down 🙁
Today’s blog is going to be rather lame & far shorted than the usual ‘War & Peace’ blogs I post. The reason? I’m cream crackered & I need to sleep… Today has been a looooong day – of my own doing you understand, but we made the most of our free day in Cusco & walked… & walked… & walked… from one end of the city to the other – or so it felt!
I took plenty of photos so will post them in this blog so they can do the talking 🙂
We leave for the start of the trek to Machu Picchu very early in the morning. But before that we have to shower, get all our gear together (just 6kgs allowed for the porters, the rest is in our backpacks – 3 litres of water included!), eat breakfast & be ready to leave at 5:30am. Hence my failure 🙁 but I gotta rest – tomorrow will be the first of 4 gruelling days as we trek far & high to reach The Lost City.
I’ll be writing each night once we reach camp. The iPad will be charged this evening & on low brightness should last the 4 days. I’ll add the photos etc & upload when we get back on Sunday – or I’ll maybe do it Monday if in too much of a state of exhaustion!
If you want to ‘follow’ our progress, here’s the plan:
Thursday: Up 4:30am, leave 5:30am. 2 hour bus drive to collection point for sleeping bags etc & loo break, the further 1 hour drive to the trek start point ‘Chillca’. Walk 11km, arrive at camp approx. 4:00pm. Dinner 5:00pm. ‘Lights’ out (lol, NO power! So torch light only anyway!) 7:00pm.
Friday: Up 5:00am, breakfast 5:30am, leave camp 6:00am. Trek 12km, through highest point of 4200m, arrive at camp approx. 2:30pm. Dinner & lights out as above.
Saturday: Get up & leave camp as above. Trek 16km, arrive at camp approx. 4:00pm. Dinner & lights out as above.
Sunday: We get to see the ‘Mountains & the Valleys of Peruuuuuuu’ for real! Get up 3:30am (!), breakfast 4:00am, leave camp 4:30am. Walk to Machu Picchu entrance gates & queue in the bitter cold for an hour – the gates open at 5:30am, but we want to be at the front so we’re getting there early to get at the front of the queue!
We travel back to Cusco by bus (boo hiss, bad bus, bad bus) & arrive back at the hotel sometime after lunch… & collapse/wash/send smelly clothes off to laundry – not sure of the order here but will let you know!
I’m tenting with Mike, John is in with Francis. We’re all very excited 🙂
Time here now is 10:40pm (4:40pm UK) & I really should be asleep, so I’m going to bid you farewell until Sunday afternoon/Monday. Please keep us all in your prayers as the conditions are likely to be very testing now that the rainy season has officially set in. Please pray for our safety, for our strength – & for our sanity!
Gb – blog ya soon!
PS – I’ll leave you with some pictures from today below 🙂
Ah brings it all back! Are the nose pipers still there!