Cusco and Machu Picchu

So, bus from puno was basically a moving sauna! Woke up at some point in the night as was actually melting and the whole bus was steamed up! Then pulled into cusco bus station 4.15 in the morning and pitch black! Anyways organization that I am, had nothing booked, no map and no idea where I wanted to go. So went for the obvious option and had a nap in the bus station ;) then met a very nice old Peruvian couple who I chatted to for a while as they were hanging around so as not to wake their family up too early! Anyways there were telling me whereto visit and that I should hang around the bus station until it was light to leave! So about 6.30 I found me a reasonably age looking taxi and decided to go to the only place I had the address of! Te hostel advertised on the back of my bus ticket. But no worries mom it wasn't a total stab in the dark, I had heard of it before and knew people who'd stayed there! Luckily when I got there they had a room available though whilst thu could look after my stuff, couldn't go into my room till later on as was too early. So decided to go for a wander around cusco. Found some good mini pizza for breakfast and then wandered around plazas and markets for a bit before meeting up with Rosie and mom to go sort out my train tickets. Dunno if I've said before but had been trying to cancel my own as was gonna do a trek up to machu picchu instead. So off we all went down to the Peru rail office only to be told we had to go to the actual train station to sort it out as they only sell tickets there! Anyways got down there and I launch into my spiel bout how come it hasn't been sorted before, as we've been emailing them for 2 weeks and different people had called aswell only to be given different answers! Were told there was a lady who dealt with these issues so to speak with her, as shed be the one who wouldve received the emails. Turns out she'd replied like the day before but we hadn't got the reply as yet. She said it was no problem refunding the outbound ticket obvs minus small admin fee but there was an issue with the return ticket..... Turns out somehow Rosie had been allowed by the system to book the return ticket a month before the outbound one!!?! So we were told that ticket couldn't be refunded as it was in the past and obvs hadn't been cancelled a day in advance as was for end of April not may! Also, when we looked turned out rosies/her moms tickets were the same = panic!
So she says she see what she can do as hear things are like $60 each so that would be a lotta money to lose! So she emailed her boss up to ask if it would be possible to refund te tickets as it was obviously a mistake, because who would intentionally book their return train a month before their outbound one?! We were told we should get a reply later in the day and she'd give us a call. So start to head back into town but only get as far as the gate when the guard tells us we need To go back. Thankfully she'd got a reply saying we would get a full refund! Wooo so despite the mild heart attack it actually all worked out for the best! I didn't have to pay a cancellation fee for that ticket and Rosie/mom got a cheaper/earlier train when they rebooked for the right day!
Anyways they were doing a city tour so o spent next couple of hours wandering round tour agencies trying to find the best price for the jungle trek to machu picchu leaving the next day! Ended up basically following these two girls around as they were doing te same thing as me, so in the end started talking and we ended up going for the same agency. Once that was all sorted, went to the market to have a look around as hadn't bought me any alpaca souvenirs as yet, part from my amazing green hat! Managed to get a bag at a steal of £3! Also restrained myself from buying one of the more brightly colored ones as I figured the one I got is usable at home aswell! However wasn't quite so restrained when it came to my 'alpaca' jumper and couldn't resist going for possibly the most garish bright red one I could find! ;) none of that plain, sensible, nice looking crap for me! Lol
So then went back to sort out my stuff then had mini 'briefing' at tour agency later on to review what we were doing/ what we needed to take. Even though it kept changing depending on who you spoke to! Then met Rosie/mom for dinner before heading back for an earlyish night tho don't think managed to get to sleep till like 12 with the music and all the people in and out the room all te time!
Up early next morning as was being picked up between 7 and 7.30! Bit of a wide time frame and obvs being Peru was 7.40. Anyways then drove around for like another 1/2 hour picking up people, and turned out we were driving in circles as people before me had been picked up from the same place we went to an hour later! Lol Peruvian efficiency for you! Then went outside of town to pick up the bikes so that was another 1/2 hour. Then began several hours of serious bumpiness till was biking time! Tho we did get a short brake at this place where the water didn't work as the neighbors had switched it off, and it played an amazing selection of 80's music! Wooo
Not gonna lie, we all looked ridiculous once set up for biking in tons of layers and florescent orange jackets! Our guide 'jimmy jones' lol gave us our group name - cutchiwatos which means friends in Quechua apparently, then we were off! I think calling it biking it was really accurate as there was no need to pedal whatsoever! Still was fun and managed to pick up some pretty good speed untie way down, though kept passing through these mini rivers passing over the road, resulting in soaking shoes, legs and butt! 3 hours later we had the option to either continue in the mini van or carry on riding, but the road changed to like dirt and stones. Claro I chose to carry on riding as did basically all of our group. Was only another hour and still wasn't that hard just a lil painful on el culo! After that we got a short break then was another 45 mins in the van to the place we were staying the night and having lunch. All meals for this trip btw began with a form of soup and were followed by something with arroz y papas frites, mostly chicken! Was good food tho don't get me wrong! Afterwards we decided to play football on the cancha outside our hostel. Bowery after like 20 mins all the other groups came along to play aswell, so ended up with like 6 different teams on a rotation system and we carried on playing until it was actually impossible to see anymore! In last game at one point wasn't even aware the ball had come back onthe pitch! Lol
Had to be up again early the next morning for breakfast at 6.30 but all was good as it was pancake with banana and chocolate! :) then began te walking! Tho after like 30 mins we stopped so Jimmy could show us this grit thing, and he was like it's a good onset repellant and then proceeded to draw on our faces with it like war paint! Lol it was cutchiwatos go! Was quite a lot of walking till lunch like 5 hours but we got lots of regular breaks and Jimmy was really good in the sense he told us it was like 45 mons of the steep uphill when it only took 20! Stopped for lunch down in this little place in the middle of nowhere. We got a 30min nap in the hammocks before lunch and then another one afterwards aswell! Was great, tho meant it was seriously hard to get going aswell! It wasn't a particularly strenuous walk but it was just so hot that it made you tired! Then got to this one point where youhad to cross the river in this lil cable cart which you pulled on a rope from one side to the other. Could fit like tops 3 people in at once so took forever to cross as had to wait for previous group to get across and then we crossed with another group so had to wait for all of them aswell! Was pretty cool little cart tho! Then was only another like 20 mins to the hot springs by the river after tho had to climb over all these wet stones and being me managed to slip and whack my shin :( spent nice 45 mins soaking my feet in hot springs as couldn't be bothered to get changed. Then there was the option to either pay for a bus to the place we were staying or walk, which should only take an hour?! Totally went for the walking option! ;) as did another 6 people in the group! We decided maybe it wasn't the best option when we saw a van driving past us with jimmy sitting on the top of it! However as about 20 mins later it got pitch black, he was waiting further up. Was all uphill and at one point did this lol shortcut where actually couldn't see a thing! Anyways was knackered when reached hostel so nice cold shower had never felt so good. Tho we still had another 1.5 hours till dinner so passed the time with cards and beer. At dinner we had some new people who were joining our group as they were doing the 3 day tour, 4 Aussies and a Dutch girl. Then their guide was jimmys brother who looked so alike it was insane! Anyways after dinner Jimmy announced he was giving us a treat, and out came these enormous shots of 'inka' tequila, which is basically just a viler version of normal tequila! Lol after this we were all encouraged by Jimmy to head on to the local 'club'. Amazing that even in a tiny town in jungle they have two lil 'clubs'! So about half of us headed on over! Oh btw everywhere they played really cheesy old school music! So the bar had like a massive screen with traditional dancing on it but then was playing kinda Peruvian pop and dance music. Tho before I leave there are a few Peruvian songs I've heard in the clubs that I wanna bring home with me! ;)
Anyways aware that we had to get up early the next morning I headed back with one of the other girls like 12ish.
Next morning think some people were a little worse for wear, but it was alright as our group had all voted to do zip lining that morning instead of walking three hours! Got another chocolate and banana pancake for breakfast then we were off. Tho had to hang around for like hour ad half at zip lining place before we could start! Was good fun tho, but was a tad slow for my liking and really hurt! There were 6 Lines in total and the two longest ones were 400m so got really cool view as you were going along them! After got driven to the hideoelectrica where we had lunch. After that was another three hour walk along the train lines to aguas calientes(town at bottom of machu picchu). Had one surreal moment tho where these men stopped us along the line and said we had to be careful as there were bees up ahead. And further along u could see people running, swinging their jumpers above their heads! Anyways so we all covered up as best we could and set off. Then like 1
Min later all of a sudden you could hear buzzing and the guides shouted 'corre' and just started legging it up the tracks! Lol we must have looked so odd all sprinting along ewearig like all our clothes! Anyways luckily only one person got sung and wasn't that bad really, could only hear some of them! Eventually reached aguas calientes where over dinner we met our guide for machu picchu. But seriously every other word he said was 'guys' and half the time it was totally out of context like not needed at all! Anyways was relatively early night as had to get up real early next morning to walk up to machu picchu before it opened!
Being me I opted for extra sleep so whilst the others left at 4, I got up at 4.25 and left at 4.40! Was pretty dark going up, lucky had my lil torch. But the path up is just like never ending stairs and u can't overtake people on them as not much room and can't see that well! Took just under an hour in total to get from the hostel up to machu picchu but seemed
Waaaaay longer at the time! So got up and joined the queue to get my stamp to go up waynu pichu and then get through the entrance where I met up with the rest of my group. When we arrived there was just like mist everywhere which created quite a cool effect! Tour was quite interesting, tho genuinely was about to kill him if he said 'guys' one more time! Lol then kinda wondered around for a bit before meeting up with some of the others to go up waynu pichu. Wasn't too bad as only took 35 mins, and the views from the top were spectacular! Was but harder coming down as was so steep in parts and by then pretty hot aswell! Had a bit more of a wander/rest before we started the hike up to the sun gate. It was now insanely hot and kinda ran outta water half way up! Think we did the round trip in 1 hour as we were so desperate to get out of te sun! Was at this point dying for a bottle of water however the only shop outside wanted
8sols for half a liter of water!! (£1.80) no way were we paying that so decided to struggle on! Also the bus back down was $8 which wasn't gonna pay even I'd had the money, so we chose to walk back down, which was sooo tiring. Got to the bottom and genuinely thought my legs were gonna give way at some point! Made it back and we all went out for pizza tho lady serving us was seriously useless and took forever to sort! Then was time to get the train back, tho unfortunately 4 people in our group had been givn a ridiculously later train at 9.30 (ours was at 6.45) and so had to wait. They tried to talk their way onto our train but couldn't get on! Anyways slept train ride which took us to ollantaytambo, some village in sacred valley. Like 300 people got off the train ad just had to find a someone out of the massive crowd who had your name on a sheet of paper! As I had booked with those two girls I was on the same bus back with then. Also slept those 2 hours back to cusco tho was still knackered when I arrived back at te hostel! Went straight to bed after a quick shower and change! Machu picchu was pretty cool and I hadn't thought it could live up to all the hype but defo did, and this is coming from someone who hates sightseeing and doesn't really appreciate culture! ;)
Had to get up early again next morning to sort my stuff out and get money before going to catch my flight. Unfortunately as I was on my way back, when I was passing through a crowd someone, I think, spat on me/tipped something down my neck and at te same time whacked into me. All in like 1 sec and before I realized what had happened they'd nicked my lil mp3 player. Luckily it was nothing important and it was hardly worth anything anyways, but stil was really annoying. All very efficient tho, impressed with how smoothly they've got it all planned out!
Anyways, made my flight fine tho had to hang around a while as was early then was off to Lima!