Cusco, Inca Trek, Merry Christmas‏

4.00.00pm GMT Tue 24th Dec 2002

Well I am in Cusco now, on Christmas Eve, after finishing the Inca Trek.

Since I last wrote to you I left Lima, went on to Pisco and then Nasca. Before getting to Nasca we stopped at the Ballestas Islands, which are known locally as the poor man Galapagos Islands, they were nice but not the Galapagos...

At Nasca I took a flight over the Nasca Lines which are some lines caved into the desert that make various shapes such as a monkey, or a person, etc. No one knows how they got there and they are amazing!

After Nasca I went to a uncovered cemetery where I saw loads of remains, and then onto Puerto Inca (or Inca Port) which was pleasant and relaxing.

We then went onto Arequipa which was a really lovely little town (well quite a big town actually) it was there I ate Alpaca (kinda baby Llama) and visited a huge Convent. After Arequipa it was onto the Colca Canyon (the deepest in the world) and watched Condors fly, it was here we had a small Earthquake (about 3 or 4).

Then about a week ago I arrived in Cusco just for the night before entering the Sacred Valley, we drove to Ollantaytambo and visited a few ruins before an earlñy night (caused by a blackout). The next morning we were up early to start the Inca Trek, over the next three and a half days I trekked 50km at altitude and most of it climbing up and down from 2,000ft at the lowest to 4,200ft at the highest. I can honestly say it was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, parts of me are still arching I never knew I had!! But needless to say I made it (thanks to a couple of others helping encourage me) and got to Machu Picchu ruins (though I did bust my knee there!) and I have to saw the Inca Ruins there are truly amazing and almost made all the effort worth it.