Bring on Cusco

Hey all, we are now in Cusco, Peru where the sacred valley of the Incas is located and nearby Machu Picchu can be explored. Since the 11hr Bus from Arequipa we arrived here, Faye in quite good spirits, me not so good due to the loss of my sleeping pill on the bus whilst watching the in bus movie Jaws. Dang! None the less, we had ourselves a good breaky and commenced our search for Amazon and Machu Picchu info. After much searching and insight, we opted for the more adventurous 5 day tour of Park National Manu about 300-400km north of Cusco. This area considered one of the most diverse areas of the amazon due to it being 100% virgin forest, so we handed over our money for this reason and also because they take very small groups which give a better chance of spotting wildlife.

Sunday i hooked up with Carlos, a top local lad who took me on some of the best mtbing i have ever had. 3 x 30min trails of inca steps, rock gardens, super steep, tight switch backed, cliff edged style riding right down into the sacred valley. Some of these trails passed several villages where the natives were living right down to bare basics. They also saw me get chased by several dogs wating to eat me for brunch. Sheeeeit! Anyway, Carlos is the Man and it looks like i will catch up with him in the next few days to do some more sweet trails hopefully on one of his mates good rigs (much better then the piece of crap i had to use before - RST forks anyone?).

So we took off on monday for the 10 hr van trip into Manu, of which we covered probably only 300-400km of windy, bumpy, cliff edged breathtaking mountains and forest, spotting the odd colourful bird on the way. Stayed in a hostel in a small community for the night, then took off the next day for a 3hr boat up the Rio Madre de Dios to reach the eco lodge. On arrival, we saw why all the travel was worth while, 1.5 days to reach a text book style jungle lodge with raised wooden platforms sheltered by A Framed palm leaf roofs. We spent the rest of the day chilling in hammocks, eating, and playing cards. The night saw us explore a nearby trail, on the way spotting creepy bugs and insects, amongst these were scorpions, a male tarrantula, and a dinner plate sized scorpion spider. I kept my distance, especially when Wil (guide) tried to entice the female Tarrantula from its nest! Yah!

On the following day we set out for the main hiker thru the forest for 11km, keeping as qiute as possible as to not scare the animals. Just out from the lodge we fed loadfs of squirell monkeys bananas, them set out (Calle and I with macchetes!) for more. On the way we spotted various coluorful macaws, more monkeys and heard a pack of 50 or so wild boars very close. We kept as quite as possible and heard them as close as 30m away snorting, growling and snapping branches thru the forest, pretty frightening actually, but unfortunate not to be able to see them thru the thick forest.

We arrived late arvo to fish at our camp site, Faye catching the most. Then the best thng appeared for the whole trip, firstly one giant otter, then about 5 mins later a pack of 4 snorted their way carefully past the river bed then thru the river togetther. An amazing site for sure. Come nightfall, we put n our rubber boots and hiked thru a rock bedded stream with up to waist deep water for hour and waited for complete darkness to find caimens (crocodiles). As crazy as this sounds, they are completely harmless and are scared of humans, so no probs there. Anyway, we were not too lucky there, on the way back only picked up one baby croc, god kmows how will spotted it.

Day 4, we woke up to lots of rain coming out of our tents, the tarpfor shelter even filled and dumped water into our breakfast! Pleasant stuff. So we took of to return for the 11km trek back to the lodge, spotting more monkeys, luckily we saw 2 woodpeckers (which you can only normally hear) and a female hairy assed tarrantula. Cool stuff. Returning to the lodge we chilled more in hammocks (i gotta get me one of these) and fished late in the arvo catching the odd catfish on handline and net. Good eating.

Friday we woke at the hellish hour od 4.30am ready for the 4hr boat back to the van, then 8 hrs back to Cusco. Getting back to the hostel to an actual bed and shower was the business.

Today we are going to check into Machu Picchu. We are not doing the inca trail cos we are a bit over trekking, and our guide says it is ripped off for what it is. So we are going to talk to Wil today cos he says he can hook us up with a mate who can drive us there to see it for the day, a much cheaper option. Wednesday should see us out of here for Lima, most likley flying because it is very cheap and a better option to the 25hr bus! Then up the coast for beach and surfing (chicama Scottboy, oh yeah!). Also the huge Andean mtn range od Corderilla de Blanca, loads of peaks all over 5000m.

So until next time, take it easy yall.