The Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

It´s actually a couple of days since I staggered, like a geriatric after one too many, onto a bus out of Machu Picchu. We treked for four days along the Inca Trail, arriving at Machu Picchu early on the fourth, and then scaled the 300-metre high Waynupicchu.
We were a group of 12. Four surly giant Polish boxers, who drank their body weight in rum or whisky each night, and then insisted on charging at the front the following day, although most tended to slow after a while. One bionic Kiwi girl, who left us all for death. A gay Irish couple, one of whom strained a groin and did well too finish. A great fun Alaskan couple - although the guy was almost taken out with fever - and another American couple, the female half of which hated every moment.
The first day was easy - a mere six hours - the second was supposed to be the killer. We were a quick group, generally halving the expected time for each leg, and as we reached the highest point of Dead Woman´s Pass, at 4200 metres above sea level, I honestly thought I could go quicker without too much trouble.
Unfortunately, this was short-lived. I have dodgy ankles and an old knee injury and am happier going uphill than down, so after a couple of hours going down I was none-too-happy. This was followed by more up, by which time I was knackered, and then more down, by which time my body was knackered. I got a cold, couldn´t stop sneezing, and needed the toilet (the kind of need even men can´t, or at least shouldn´t, do behind a bush) and felt a sudden unexpected bowel movement would spell disaster. Fortunately I held on!
The third day was easier as my old banger of a body found a way to trudge through a mere six hours. The fourth was a dawn two-hour charge to Machu Picchu because - get this - I wanted to be there early enough to be one of the lucky 400 to drag their carcas up Waynapicchu. It was well worth it.

Cusco, waiting

We leave for the Inca Trail tomorrow, early I think. I´m a bit bored of Cusco and am itching to get started. Cusco´s lovely and has quite a buzz about it, with pretty cool bars, restaurants and nightclubs. But it feels as though I am in a giant waiting room and they try and charge for everything here which, although it´s all pretty cheap, gets a bit tiring.
We´re at 3500 metres - I said feet previously - and I still feel a-ok. The first day´s hike shouldn´t be too bad by all accounts, it´s the second day that is the killer, when we reach our highest point of 4200 metres, and is uphill all the way. By the end of the third day we´re pretty much done, the fourth is a gentle two-hour walk to Machu Picchu.
I´m currently in the hostel waiting to be collected for a briefing, but the guide is late so thought I´d blog. Anyway, hope you´re all well, I will try and blog again from Aguas Calientes - a little town by Machu Picchu - and hopefully load some pictures as well.

Deepest, darkest Peru

(The pics are Valparaiso).

Sorry, I know I´ve neglected you of late, so here´s a quick catch up. I got an early morning flight from Buenos Aires back to Santiago, then a bus to Valparaiso for a night, back to Santiago once more, then a flight to Peru, one night in Lima and now I´m in Cusco, having arrived around midday today.
Buenos Aires seemed magnificent, like a Latino Manhattan, but I only had half a day there, so too little to judge. I will return in a couple of weeks. Santiago you know about, Valparaiso is beautiful, or at least the historic port area is. The city that has sprung up around it is, well, cityish, but the port, which thrived just over a century ago, is full of pastal-coloured buildings, cobbled streets, and colonial Spanish architecture which is at the same time rustic and grand. I wish I could load pics, but as ever the computer is playing up, so you´ll have to take my word for it.
Lima, by contrast, is pretty damn ugly. Although it was a flying visit, so maybe its not fair to judge. It´s huge, about the size of London, certainly bigger than Santiago, and noticably poorer.
Finally, Cusco is fantastic. Unashamedly touristy, but as the former Capital of Inca empire, it is fair to assume the buildings at least were not built with the 21st century tourism trade in mind. I have three days here. Apparently I have to adjust to the altitude, but I feel fine, we´re at about 3500ft - I freefall three times this for breakfast. Anyway, on the 27th - Friday, I think, I never know what day of the week it is anymore (no jokes) - we start the four-day Inca trek to Machu Pichu. I´ll probably blog next when that´s completed and hopefully load some pics.

Cape Horn and the glaciers

Hola amigos! I´ll post pics for this blog as soon as I can. This computer doesn´t seem to have a USB socket for my card reader, but it´s an entry that really needs illustrating.
As I said in my last blog, the last four days have been spent on a cruise in Patagonia - southern Chile and Peru.
It´s for a travel piece and the promoters call it a tour to the end of the world. When you arrive in Punta Arenas it really feels that way. It´s so different from Santiago and the typical image of South America - colder for a start - sparse, bare and desolate, with skeletal trees, stray dogs lying on the side of the road (more from boredom than disease or hunger, I think), and people congregated in shabby cafes drinking beer during the daytime.
I didn´t know what to expect from a cruise on such a doorstep, but it has been incredible. Often you have to pinch yourself to realise you are actually standing on Cape Horn, one of the southern most outposts in the world, or sailing through Glacier Valler, which has 16 glaciers. We saw elephant seals - fantastically big ugly beasts - and comical little penguins.
At first I was a little concerned that most of the other guests were retired Americans but I found willing drinking partners in a fellow travel writer and PR rep who were in my age bracket and like me happy to take advantage of the free bar. Johnny Walker and I have become close friends these last few days!
The airline from Ushuia messed up my flights so I missed my connection in Buenos Aires. But they have been very good, putting me up in a swanky hotel, and I have an early flight back to Santiago tomorrow. I have a blocked right ear from the flight and the world is a little muffled, but it would be churlish in the extreme to complain. Life is good!

Leaving Santiago

Wow, I love South America. Well - Chile at present - but I think it´s a South American thing. The people are friendly and good fun, the women are unbelieveably hot, and the whole places buzzes with excitement. It´s like living in a Gabriel Garcia Mazquez novel, I think this city is for hopeless romantics and poets. Anyway, tomorrow I head for something completely different. I don´t know if I´ll be able to blog so I´m letting you know now. I have a four-day cruise from southern Chile to southern Argentina, going through Cape Horn, glaciers, etc. It is all under my guise as travel writer ordinaire and sounds phenomenal.

Chile, first impressions

This is my second day in Chile. I was up for about 30 hours yesterday, so feel more normal now.

Santiago has a dry, bustly feel about it. It´s hot and humid and the streets are full of students wearing rags and covered in dirt, trying to raise funds for university (this is genuine - like rag week.). There are also con-artists about who show you poetry and then ask for money for their studies, this is Santiago´s favourite con and, fortunately, it´s not very convincing. The hostel is great and the Chileans seem very friendly, although few speak English, which makes chatting hard, but it no doubt good for my pigeon Spanish (that´s probably insulting to pigeons).

Will sample the nightlife this evening, then have one more day here before a flight to Punta Arenas and a four-day cruise of the ice caps of Patagonia, which will end in Ushuia, Argentina. I will then fly back to Santiago and probably head north for my few remaining days to Valparaiso, which sounds great.

Some travels, mostly travails

(I´ve added pics of Lake Tekapo above)

Everyone likes to cheer themselves up with tales of other people´s misfortune, so go knock yourself out... (Can´t complain really, I´m still here!)
Travail numero uno (As I´m in Chile I will occasionally drop in bits of Spanish, or at the least English with ´o´ or ´es´ tagged on the end). So we left Queenstown and headed east to Dunedin which is supposed to be Little Edinburgh but only if it was built in a recession by people who had never been to Edinburgh, or architect school, and were idiots. Actually, I´ve met a few people who liked Dunedin, but this isn´t their blog so. We then went onto Lake Tekapo, which was named after a Teletubby, and like so many places on the South Island (I know this must be getting tiring) is ridiculously beautiful. The lake itself is so blue it looks like someone dipped a giant brush covered with blue paint in it. Anyway, I got food poisoning, and was horribly sick both in the hostel and then during a painful bus journey to Christchurch, where...
Travail dos - I realised about 30 hours before my flight that I didn´t fly out of Christchurch at all, but Auckland. For most people this would be a shocking act of stupidity for me the only shocking thing is it took this long to happen, but all´s well that end´s well because...
Travail tres - I got a flight from Christchurch to Auckland at noon on Wednesday. The timing was good because I managed to watch most of Liverpool´s Champion´s League win over Real Madrid (why can´t we perform that well against Middlesbrough?) I waited for a few hours in Auckland before catching a ten-hour flight to Santiago. I sat next to a Chilean guy and tested all six words in my Spanish vocabuary, four were wrong. The glass of Chilean red with the meal was bland, and I thought I liked Chilean reds, jury´s now out. About half way through the flight the crew announced a passenger needed assistance and asked if a doctor or nurse was on board. This was quite disconcerting, but not as much as when they asked for a second time. Finally we arrived at - you guessed it - noon on Wednesday. Why is this a travail - Chilean red, bad Spanish, ill passenger? No. This will probably be the only day in my life I get to ´do over´, and that´s how I spent it.

Milford Sound, the bungy and Queenstown madness

With the exception of Greymouth, New Zealand gets more and more beautiful as you head down the west coast of the south island - from sunny Nelson, Abel Tasman and Golden Bay, to the glaciers at Franz Josef and Fox, culminating in Milford Sound, which is pretty much the most naturally beautiful part of the world I've ever seen, narrowly beating Rishikesh, Fraser Island, Algonquin in Canada, and of course Betws-y-Coed.

We went on a boat trip through the sound, which is surrounded by huge mountains and tons of waterfalls, it was great and a nice break from the less tranquil activities of New Zealand, speaking of which...

Most of you who know me on Facebook, know I have bungied Nevis, which is 134 metres high, and - I think - the second tallest in the world behind one in Hong Kong. You jump from a small platform on a high wire, surrounded by mountains with a shallow and rocky creek below. In truth you don't get that close to the creek so never have the sensation that you're about to smash your head open (one of the many things that flashes through your mind in the minutes before jumping).

It was a pretty confusing jump and bizarrely I often wasn't sure whether I was going up or down. The idea is to dive, as if into a swimming pool, as that way your body isn't flipped at the bottom. The fall literally took my breath away and I didn't shout anything until descending the second time, when all sorts of profanities were let loose.

One of the things about Queenstown is, as the activities hot-spot of New Zealand, everyone is buzzing from a bungy, sky dive, Milford or something similar, so the nights out have been crazy and a lot of fun.

The Glacier

I have just finished a full day hike up Franz Josef (I've realised it's spelt like this). It was an amazing experience. We hiked for 12 kilometres, and it was pretty hard - much harder than I imagined. Fortunately we had a nice day, we're surrounded by rain forest here - a Glacier in the middle of rain forest, it's nuts - so it rains a lot, but generally it was pretty good. The whole thing was exhausting.
Surprisingly they don't have a route planned, the guides just get there and decide which way they want to go. They have pic axes so they can carve steps in the ice for us to walk up or down, and they attach ropes to the steeper slopes. We had crampons attached to our boots which made walking on ice easy enough, although it was strenuous and at times we walked along a narrow ridge with sheer drops on either side.
One girl slipped and pierced one leg with the crampon spikes from her other boot, ouch. I had originally planned to kayak here but when I realised the Chile trip does not include an actual glacier hike - there are three sub-tropical glaciers, two here in NZ and one in southern Chile - I decided I better take the opportunity here.
New Zealand has been unbelievable, but expensive when you add up the costs of all the activities. I have a bungy either tomorrow or the day after in Queenstown, and then a trip to Milford Sounds, then I'll head to the easy coast and back north to Christchurch. Can't believe I'll be in South America in little over a week, the trips going so fast!