Following a flight over the Darien Gap via Swansea (congratulations Cat and Toby!), we landed in Peru on Tuesday 17th. Keen to start adjusting to the altitude before we set off on the Inca Trail, we flew straight to Cuzco on the Wednesday morning.
We knew that the Inti Raymi sun festival was on the 24th but we were not prepared for the extent of the celebrations taking place in the city. First impressions of Cuzco were of a beautiful old city mixing colonial and Inca architecture and with non-stop parades and dancing. The main square was closed to traffic on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and each day groups of people in different local costumes paraded round performing their variations of the traditional dances. They each carried different props for their dances, like rainbows made of llama wool, pitchforks and machetes or what looked like human skulls and leg bones in one case! The local school kids were also out in force to support their friends so at times the whistling and screaming was deafening.
On Friday we walked up to the biggest local Inca site, Saqsaywaman, where the Inti Raymi arena was being set up, and admired the stonework of the huge fortress. We wanted to try and acclimatise to the altitude so we continued up to the next 3 ruins where we saw Inca altars carved in caves and fountains from natural springs. Our real Inca experience started on Saturday, however, when we set off on the Inca Trail.
So many people have done the Inca Trail that I don´t really know what to say about it. We had lovely weather for the first 3 days (typical!) so we walked and camped and admired the Inca ruins en route. Our second day went over Dead Woman´s Pass (4200m) but then we camped before the next pass so the third day was our longest. On the fourth day we got up really early to be the second group to enter the Machu Picchu area when it opened at 5:30am but the whole of the site and Sun Gate were in the clouds. We power-walked up to the Sun Gate then continued down to the Hut of the Caretaker. Our group sat around optimistically for a few minutes hoping that the clouds might clear but when it became obvious that they wouldn´t, we started our tour of the city. Gradually the sun burnt the clouds off and the view that appeared was breathtaking. We were amazed that the whole city had been right below us and we hadn´t been able to see a thing!
The tour took us round all the famous sites and then left us to our own devices to get some photos in the sun and wander round the ruins at our leisure. Stu and I decided to find a secluded spot on the terraces where we could rest in the sun and admire the view without tourists tripping over us. It turned out that Stu also had other motives for wanting a secluded spot as after we´d been lounging around for about 15 minutes he produced a ring and asked me to marry him. Needlesstosay, I burst into tears and after being told that a nod wasn´t sufficient, said yes. We headed down to Aquas Calientes and on back to Cuzco feeling very happy and in rather a state of shock.
