Finally back after our one week salcantay epic trek…. yes, it was supposed to be a five day trek… we´ll get to that later. It was amazingly awesome but also, getting back for a shower and a massage planned for tomorrow is almost as awesome.
Day 1: Alarm goes off at 4:00am- ewww. We didnt get too much sleep, probs coz we ended up chatting in andy and charlottes room for far too long. oopsies! Anyways, bags were packed and we huddled by the courtyard door thing waiting for someone to pick us up….4:30-5 was the specified time, and to be fair 5:15am wasnt too bad going. Turned out the guy who was also waiting at the hostel was with the same company as us whoop. Got on a bus to some random place (slept) and then had what was (according to the itinerary) a delicious breakfast… stale bread and jam. And we had to pay! 1.75 pounds! ridiculous. Toby paid a little bit more for some eggs so his wasnt sooo bad, and in the end i didn´t pay for mine as i happened to sneak off to the toilet just at the right time. hehe! We then were told about a train strike which basically meant we couldnt do the 5 day trek it either had to be 4 or 6. Apparently some other people had been warned about this, but apparently our agency didnt think it was too too important :S after some important deliberation (would we make the england match on the 6 day?!?!¿¿) toby decided we would go for 6 day, as did basically everyone else.
And then we were off! there were 10 in our group, 5 english, couple of aussies, usa, swiss and german. All really young and cool… basically we were very relieved we werent´with a bunch of aging rich tourists, many of which seem to be lurking in the cusco area. We walk up hill (groan for a few hours maybe 4) before stopping for lunch with an awesome view… and now for the test of food… after the salt flats we were anxious…. but they passed! spag bol with garlic bread and soup for starter! waaahay. In the afternoon we did more walking (apparently thats what you do on a trek!) and arrived at the campsite at 5 something. Our guide marco said we were very fast compared to normal groups… and the other group from the same agency arrived like an hour later! we got piles of popcorn for a snack 
:) followed by beef casserole and more soup and constant hot drink offers (great for me…not). We managed to stay up til about 8:30 before crashing in the FREEZING tents (we were at high altitude).
Day 2: awake, 5:30am – crazyness. Apparently this was the hardest day of the trek, climbing to the highest point of 4,600m altitude i think…. We got given a snack pack for the morning after a pancake breakfast and headed off… freezing. About half an hour later we were all boiling from walking uphill and i changed into my short shorts which i didnt think would see the light of day anymore on this trip. They looked well good with my llama pattern leg warmers! The walk up was tough! especially the last hour. Toby didnt seem too fazed by it but i had to stop every 5 seconds for breath (i blame the altitude) he was very encouraging and eventually we made it took some pics (v impressive snowy mountain, the salcantay one the trek is named after. From there it was about 2-3 more hours downhill until lunch but we made good time which meant after lunch (yummy healthy stuff) we could have a nap by this stream. It was boiling and i got a stupid tan line on my leg which im still trying to get rid of!
More walking, this time we crossed from snowy mountains into the jungle. SO weird, we literally walked through this arch way thing and you could feel the humidity hit you and the plants started to change. It was a nice walk but we were told around 4 ish one hour to the campsite and it was soooo much longer. EVery corner we hoped we would be there, but werent. The campsite again had an awesome view, and beer for sale! awesome times! More popcorn, more beef casserole and half the group went to bed straight after again. the rowdy five english stayed up and made our own rave with ipod speakers, prodigy tunes and flashing torches and lighters. A-MEZZZZIN! Especialy as the other group were on the other side of this sheet thing getting a lecture from their guide on inca history. <hopefully the lights were very distracting for them
Day 3 : After a lot warmer and nicer nights sleep we got up at 6am (lie in!) and as a special treat on this day we only had to walk 7 hours! I cant even remember the walk on this day to be fair, but im sure it was very jungly and hot and nice, not too uphill as i recall. WE finally made it to the village of la playa for lunch around 2… and they managed to tune in the world cup for us, cant remember what match. more beer, amazing buffet lunch and an actual toilet for a change. OOPS, forgot to mention that on this day we switched guides to the rubbish inca history one so it was a bit of a snore fest after marco the original awesomely chilled one… henry was just not up to scatch. That afternoon the boys all played football… peru against the rest of the world. I was tempted to play, but it got pretty serious and i quickly decided cheif supporter (and entertainer of all mosquitos in the area) was my job. The game went on far too long (like 2 hours… and the peruvians kept cheating and disallowing our goals because we were too good. But we won like all the many games. Henry did chat to me later though and said i was very lucky because my boyfriend was a very good football player…. rightttt. More beers and popcorn obviously followed as did another earlyish night 5:30am wake up again.
Day 4: Last day of walking (or so we thought…) It was a toughy! especially as we had to carry all our stuff as the horses that had been carrying them had sensibly turned back as they didnt wanna walk the ridiculously tough walk. I did quite well out of it as me and toby shared one huge rucksack (which obvs he carried ) and i had the small day pack, which was almost breaking (thats what you get for paying 3 pounds) so sadly couldnt have much weight in it. 
We powered through the walk uphill, walking ahead of the guide, mostly so he couldnt make us do unnecessary stops….I suppose you could say it was worth it though as we good to this look out point where we had a really cool view of macchu picchu in the distance so we stopped and picniced our lunch (it was 10am but we were wellll hungry from the uphill). Then it was downhill. Really steep really horrific far too long. At many points i felt like jumping of the dangerously close edge but there was an end like 3 hours later where we came to this “village” (a couple of shacks along a railway line) with a really massive waterfall… stopped for a burger with chips in it and then yet another 3 hour walk along the railway line. the guide had left us by this point but that was for the best and we powered through and at last made it to the town of aguas caliente at the bottom of macchu picchu late in the afternoon. It was a euphoric moment, although the town was a bit of an ugly monstrosity. We marched through (the four of us at the front anyway) on a serious hunt for beer. 20 soles the first places tried to charge us (5 pounds for a litre… rip off!) so we continued… bargaining our way, still no luck. We turned a corner and all of a sudden had two places battling for our custom…. 15…..12….10 …. free nachos included-… sold! so we sat there desperately in need of showers filthy smelly feet in this actually quite nice place with actual posh tourists in it … and a beer had never tasted so good!!
ANyways tobys turn to report xxx