Group meeting and Sacred Valley

We checked into Hotel Prisma in the afternoon and behaved a bit like children who had had too much sugar when we got to our twin room with an ensuite and a... wait for it...balcony!! We then went down at 5pm for a meeting with our group of 16 and our guide who would be with us for the week. His name is Fernadez and he went through the route with us and what to pack and expect from the Inca Trail. Jen and I hired a warm sleeping bag and a thick mattress. G Adventures restrict you with 6kg that the porters can carry for you, so with the sleeping bag and foam mattress we were down to 2.5kg for clothes and toiletries. It wasn't much!

We went out after the meeting and bought snacks and useful things like sunscream and wet wipes, which took us forever! Afterwards we went to Quinoa and met the Austrailians for dinner. It was this tiny restaurant and we were all sat along the only table in there. A woman and man cooked everyone's meal from scratch. It consisted of soup, corn juice, trout with veg and rice and fruit with cinnamon for desert. For the third night running Jen and I were unlucky with food- my trout, even though the man wrote the order down on his pad, never came and so I waited a bit longer for my food. I think we'll go back there as the food was so nice and it was only 15 soles (£3.50). We walked via a crepe stall and couldn't resist a crepe with chocolate- it was amazing. Again, we'll be going back. We love Cusco.

It was getting late and we still had to pack. We quickly got all our things together and went to weigh our bag in the scales downstairs- 4kg!! Oh no...instead of sorting it out, we just went to sleep and decided to sort it later.

After a wake up call at 6am and a bad night's sleep, we left the hotel at 7:30am and drove away from the city, passing the Cristo Blanco (white statue of Christ overlooking the city) and Sacsayhuaman, inca ruins nearby. On route, we stopped at a lookout over the Sacred Valley. The views were amazing. It's really interesting how they grow their crops in steps up the sides of the hills. Apparently, different levels are best for different crops in order to have the perfect growing conditions. We then headed to the Pisac ruins which were also really cool and the scenery was impressive. There were men restoring the ruins, as they were slowly loosing their structure. Jen and I felt absolutely exhausted from a bad night's sleep, were so hot and hungry, so I don't think we 100% appreciated it, or rather enjoyed it to the max, but it was great all the same. 

After a great buffet lunch where we ate too much, we checked into our hotel in Ollantaytambo. It was a nice little hotel in the centre of town. We went for a walk around with the group and the guide and visited a house in the town. What was so crazy were the free range guinea pigs running around in the big bedroom/kitchen eating food and getting really plump. Guinea pig is more of an occasion food, so a Peruvian would eat one guinea pig on a birthday or something. There were skulls of the dead and baby lamas hanging up in the large room, which were all a bit ominous. We then head to the inca ruins in the town and had a wander round, Fernando telling us about the history. They would quarry the stones nearby, and it would take a hell of a lot of man power to pull the rocks up the ramp and into position. The rocks would be carved with chisels to fit perfectly together like a jigsaw puzzle. It was so impressive and I couldn't believe they did it this way.

After a couple of hours exploring, we chatted to an English couple from our group who had were about 25 and were travelling for just over a year in total. They were very nice and were also worried about the 2.5kg limit! We chilled in the hotel for a bit and headed out for a pancake with fruit. We just fancied it and were still full from lunch, so just wanted something that wasn't a big meal! Lights out at 9:30pm for a fun fuelled day one of the Inca Trail tomorrow! Exciting!