The Quest To Machu Picchu

We are running through the night. Past open drains, feet smacking the rough downhill, the darkness full of backpacker zombies, stumbling blindly through town and groaning. Shouting for our group, this 4am halflight is all torches and confusion. We are all racing to the gates. A collection of the most hardened and ambitious lead the pack.

To get to Machu Picchu on foot one must climb over 2000 steps. A climb known as The Gringo Killer. The gate to the path opens at 4.45am. If you make the climb in under and hour you beat the first bus and guarantee yourself a stamp to climb Waynapichu - the famous peak pictured in all the Machu Picchu moneyshots. It´s all very competitive.

"It burns for the first 400" I hear. These steps aren´t normal steps, but jagged, uneven giant steps. We hit them running, still at the front of the pack. After 2 minutes I´m breathless.

As I climb I think of my friends. My family. Casting my mind into the wonderous pool of happy memories, plucking them out still breathing. I think of the birds, who are singing despite the soft sheet of rain. And of Yale University, who have some relics (mainly gold) which were taken from the site of Macchu Picchu and still have not been returned. Halfway up, (we imagine) and it feels as if i have been climbing steps for my entire life.

Thirty five minutes and we are at the top, soaked in rainwater and sweat, with twenty others already in the queue at the entrance to Machu Picchu - the Old Mountain.

The four days preceding this moment have been utterly amazing - some of the finest of my trip. Day one was mountain biking from 4000m to 1000m: through the freezing mist down into the jungle. The three day trek snaked through unbelievable mountains, hugging the cliffs, falling away hundreds of feet on one side to a river. One of our group suffers vertigo and had to crawl, not looking down. Bananas, mangoes, avacado and papaya grow in abundance in this lush landscape. The perfect day ends at the hot springs beside a raging river. Floating in the hot water and watching a storm roll in, huge drops falling on us as we loll in the massive bath.

That night we have no electricity and the storm drains are overflowing, splashing down the slick streets.

Our group has swelled to 21 people and the cameraderie is immense. A snake which stretches a mile or more as we trek along the riverbed. Finally we glimpse what we have been aiming for in the distance. And after hiking along the railway tracks singing Stand By Me and idly looking for bodies we reach the town at the base of the mountain.

2000 steps and a small piece of my soul later and I´m at the gates.

You see a thousand pictures of this place but nothing prepares you for what surrounds this mystical city. Impossibly steep, jagged cliffs shrouded in mist. A river snaking through the valley. And perched amidst it all is a ruin so perfect it has become the holy grail of Peru.

The rocks are placed so elegently you can not slide a piece of paper between them. One has 21 sides and fits snuggly into the wall like a jigsaw. So much beauty your eyes can scarcely comprehend.

The mountain towering above the ruins is Waynapichu and glowers down upon us all until we give in and scale the beast. The climb is amazing. Steps so steep you are climbing not walking. And crawling through a cave to reach the top, you are greeted with a stack of boulders precariously placed, gringos perched on each one grinning.

With all its shams, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

The Great Big South American Ticklist

Be warned. The smugness of this post may make you sick.

The things we ticked off our lists, our great, ever-expanding, life-long lists, were plentiful. Whilst on the road, Andy Ellis and I:

* Ate the Steak of Our Lives in Argentina.

* Rode pillion on a motorbike in the biggest favela in Rio.

* Looked a Southern Right Whale squarely in the face and heard her mammoth inhalation as she filled her lungs.

* Went to a Brazilian rave in the country wilds of Sao Paulo.

* Sunk numerous caipirinhas on Copacobana Beach in Rio.

* Swam in the thermal waters of a hot volcanic spring.

* Breathed the sulphuric stench from a geyser in Bolivia.

* Got chased by llamas.

* Rode a horse into the red desert where Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid battled it out.

* Chewed coca leaves in Bolivia.

* Rode tipsily round the bodegas in Mendoza, sampling the wines.

* Felt the spray of the Iguassu Falls on our faces.

* Saw a Tango Show in Buenos Aires.

* Were robbed blind.

* Watched the sun rise over the Bolivian Salt Flats.

* Accidentally ate cow lung soup. (Big white hexagonal tissue which flails like coral in the hot liquid. Rising bile.)

* Dived into a glacial river.

* Saw smoke rising from two active volcanos.

* Slept in a hotel made entirely from salt.

* Cycled down the World´s Most Dangerous Road.

* Visited the world´s first cocaine bar.

* Crawled down a stifling silver mine in Potosi.

* Hiked through the Amazon rainforest by night.

* Watched the sunrise over Lake Titicaca.

* Survived a light aircraft flight over the Andes.

* Hiked through the jungle to Machu Pichu.

* Sandboarded screaming down the world´s biggest sand dunes.

* Ate a Mexican Christmas dinner in a palm fringed courtyard.

* Were battered by the waves in the Pacific as we played frisbee on Christmas day 2010.

* Had severe food poisoning thanks to a cup of unboiled tap water.

* Toasted marshmallows in an active volcano.

* Burnt effigies at a political rally in Honduras.

* Waded through a flooded Columbian barefoot.

* Got rained on everytime we visited the Caribbean.

* Veered too close to the crocodiles in a boat screaming with tourists.

* Traveled with a group of 11 of our best friends and siblings for Christmas and New Year.

* Missed home.

* Came home.

Eau De DEET: Ruff In Da Jungle

OK so. The Amazon was like, right there so we thought, fuck it. Let´s do it. Let´s buy a cheap flight on a light aircraft and risk our lives flying over the Andes, my entire body CLENCHED and praying to a God I do not believe in. Every tick and whurr and change in tempo of those flimsy little propellors and I´m in pieces. *GASP* OH MY GOD! The entire cabin is looking at me digging my nails into the arm rests. Some are laughing. Some are sympathetic. None of them seem to realise we are about to die.

And then we land in a field, which is infact the airport in Rurrenebaque, the jungle town of Northern Bolivia. Adjectives first. HOT. Loud. Humid. The air is tangibly thick like a soup spiked with insects. Every single person we see is dripping with sweat - locals included. We get on a boat with a crew of six amazing chaps and head up the backwaters into the Pampas. Immeditaly the stars of the show begin to emerge. Caimon! somneone shouts. Where? Did i miss it? asks Niv, one of our gang. Then we see another set of eyes, then another, they are everywhere these prehistoric lizards. Basking in the water, eyeing the boat with sidelong glances, as nonchalent as our guide Jiro.

Turtles stacked up like Russian dolls in descending size, capabari - giant guinee pigs - snuffling around the shoreline, having swimming lessons. They all freeze when the see the boat, peering at us like a giant Sylvanian family. The absolute star of the show is the Anaconda we see draped around a tree. And the piranhas which we catch using lumps of steak, whisking them out of the water, their jaws still gnashing. Not much meat on a piranha mind.

Two pink river dolphins join our fishing expidition - hugely diminshing our catch. They shyly play, never too close but beautiful and strong diving and dining on the piranhas. After three days of pampas exploration, watching the family of squirrel monkeys who live above the camp, we head to the rainforest. Cooler, louder, more exotic. The AMAZON....

We hike through the jungle towards the camp with our guide Luis and suddenly hear ´Ay ay ay!´ Swollen by the rain, the stream cutting off us and the camp is now a raging river. We have to strip down and wade with our bags aloft. I watch as Luis tries to hurl my rucksack over the water to a waiting man. Passports, novel, journal. I cover my eyes.

Wading through the rainforest in my undies. I never expected this.

Life in the rainforest is beautiful. Cacophony of crickets, bird calls which sound like electro samples. There is a tarantula in our camp who comes out at night to hunt so a torch is essential to see what is crawling over your feet. Luis picks up the biggest ant i have ever seen with his machete. If these bite you it´s ten hours of pain. I back slowly away. Spiders bigger than my hand, frogs the size of my finger nail with transparent skin. Butterflies like dinner plates.

Standing looking skywards beneath a MASSIVE tree and suddenly i hear a load buzzing. I run my fingers through my hair to discover i have been attacked by a swarm of biting flies who burrow down to your skull and eventually cut your hair off with their pincers. They are nestled, clinging on hard and im screaming. We manage to pull them all off me when Luis returns making a face. One has flown into his EAR. Oh the horror. Later that night he kills it with cigarette smoke.

I feel like I´m on Planet Earth and Attenborough is talking me through the incredible wildlife as we meander under the canopies. The jungle is MASSIVE.

NB. The Gallery of BITES: bedbugs, sandflies, mosquitos, ants. Bedbugs are the worst by a Bolivian country mile.

The Coca Contradiction

She tells me her name is Naomi. ´Is this your place?´ I ask, impressed. ´No no, solo trabajo.´ I dont believe her for a second, this middle aged, glamourous woman and the owner of the world´s first cocaine bar. I´d be cagey too.

So we found Route 36. Emerging blinking with the kids into the sunlight after 12 hours of darkness on Halloween night, we feel another box has been thoroughly ticked. The place has no windows so you never know how horrifyingly light it is outside. It is full of vampires, people who thrive on darkness and deviance, and it shows me the glaring coca contradiction in pure crystaline form.

Coca is an essential product for the people of Bolivia. Not only because of the economic benefit. It is tightly bound in their tradition, a ritual. It is thought that 90% of the population chew coca leaves. They stave off hunger, cold, pain. They reassure and provide nutrients and energy. They give the overworked a crutch, something sparkley to help you feel good.

Rewind to a silver mine in Potosi, the highest city in the world. We are shown the distressingly narrow mines by an ex-miner. We stoop then crawl into the hot tunnel, scarves protecting mouths from the asbestos dust, but due to the exertion at altitude we are all soon breathless and boiling, forced to remove the scarves in order to breathe. Greeted with a shaft that winds down further still, so narrow we have to wriggle on our bellies and i feel a rising panic. Get me out. NOW. Rushing backwards, I don{t care to look for the tiny rocks of silver with the others, i need fresh air in my lungs and sunlight on my face. We feel a hint of coolness and a see glimmer of light ahead. I run into the light and relief floods my lungs as i breathe easy once more.

The miners work 14 - 18 hour days in these conditions without food or water. We didn{t even go as far into the mines as they do - not even halfway and I was forced to turn back. Coca gets them through the day, eases the pain of their lives. The average life expecatancy is 40. And yet they continue - to ease the burden of their families poverty, each hoping that they will be the last miner in their family.

"My father coughed up blood, suddenly, his eyes started rolling. There was no warning. He died before he was 50. I can feel the lung disease too" he says, this ex-miner who spent 8 years down there before his command of English enabled him to become a tour guide. Saved by education.

In the coca museum we read a part of a poem referring to the coca legend. God said to the Andean people;

"Guard the leaves with much love and when you feel the sting of pain in your heart, hunger in your body and darkness in your mind, take them to your mouth and softly, draw up its spirit which is part of mine.

You will find love for your pain, food for your body and light for your mind.

But if your torturer, who come from the North, the white conqueror, the gold seeker should touch it, he will find in it only poison for his body and madness for his mind for his heart is as callous as his steel and iron garment.

And when the COCA, which is how you will call it, attempts to soften his feelings it will only shatter him. As the icy crystals born in the clouds crack the rocks, demolish mountains."

It will only shatter him. And that is exactly what cocaine does to Western Society. Crime, addiction, greed. A plant which so benefits one shatters another. I think of the zombies trooping into the daylight from Route 36, dazed, vacant and tasting the demolition.

Planet Bolivia

What to say.

Fresh off the back of a four day tour of the Bolivian wilderness. Fresh is the wrong word. I am anything but fresh. I now know what it truly means to slum it. Extreme changes from searing sun to below zero, air so thin you catch your breath getting in and out of a jeep. Stone beds, rationed electricity, 4am alarms, gobsmacking sunrises. Sweating in the odd boiling, but also freezing climate, the last four days have been a lesson in just how hard life can be if you are born in a country such as Bolivia. The villages we stay in are built mainly from mud and dry stone walls. They are accessed by a rubble strewn track suitable only for 4 wheel drive. They make their living swapping llamas for food. The nights are so cold the streams freeze. The days are so hot they only come out as the sun rises and falls. The llamas are fine whatever the weather.

Bolivia is literally like nothing I´ve ever seen. The landscapes are so extreme and changable it´s difficult to believe. Laguna Verde at the foot of a 5000m Volcano is actually gorgeously bright turquoise and green. Mineral deposits make it so. Laguna Hedionda (foul-smelling lake) is toxic and sulpher-saturated, black and oil-slick sticky. Laguna Colarada is bright red. All have robotic flamingos of varying pinks strutting through the shallows.

We approach a series of geysers emitting serious steam. Boiling mud belches from the centre of the universe. Such a hostile environment I have never seen. Chinchillas bounce around and we spot a sly young fox eating abandoned tourist crisps. Last night we slept in the Salt Hotel. A building made entirely from salt, we lick the walls and laugh, light-headed with altitude and beer. The majority of the tour has been conducted above 4000m. At one point we nearly reached 5000m. The pressure on my cranium keeps me awake. And the excitement.

This morning, after hooping while the sun rose on the pure white salt flats, we visit an island in the salt where many cacti grow. We met one that is over 1000 years old. The cracked salt plains are a lake bed that is 12000km squared. Pure white, further than the eye can see. So bright it hurts your eyes. It fills during rainy season to create a perfect mirror.

Our Bolivian arrival hinted at the harshness and extremity this country has to offer. Spewed off a bus at the 7am border, into the freezing blue light and headlong into a 2 hour wait because the officer didn´t like our emergency passports and their predictable lack of an entry stamp.

Once we are in, it´s all smiles, freshly squeezed oranges and women in bowler hats. Hilarious, wonderful, filthy cheap and no ATM´s. We jump on a bus which fortunately costs pence and i spend 3 hours with my sarong stuffed into my ears to bar the ´Casio keyboard on steriods´(Andy) from perforating my eardrums.

Tupiza. Bolivian wild west. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked it here. We mount two untrustworthy steeds and ride off into the red rocks through a canyon, one hand holding the sombreros, the other the reins. Pointless as the horses do whatever they like.

We are properly and securely into the groove. I don´t know or need to know what day it is. My most valued possesion is the Spanish i am collecting like hard-earned coins. I am amidst a continent i have dreamed of seeing for at least as long as I´ve known a certain boy. This dream has been running uninterrupted for nearly a decade. And now we are living it.

I apologise for my smugness. But I cannot contain this feeling. What it is to be ALIVE.

Mendoza

Wine wine wine.

The town of Mendoza is basically wine capital of Argentina.

Whilst here:

We ate the steak of our lives. Fatter than my bicep.

Andy thought he had tonsillitus. It turned out to be a mouth ulcer.

We cycled round some of the most immense bodegas (vineyards) tasting and loving the fruits of Argentina in the sun.

The malbec was so smooth it was like drinking a doormouse (says Andy).

Andy´s handlebars came off.

We swam in some hot springs in the mountains.

And ate one too many empanadas.

In Patagonia

Puerto Madryn. Those two words display a fusion of two languages, two cultures. In 1865, 160 plucky welsh men and women from all over Wales sailed a ship called Mimosa from Wales to Brazil. Finding that Brazil was not for them, they pushed on, down the coast, to the isolated Chubut Province, landing at what is now Puerto Madryn. They lived in caves all winter. (Hardcore in the ice and snow of Patagonia) Then hiked a few kilometres to create the towns now known as Gaiman, Dolavon and Trelew. They wanted to create a "little Wales beyond Wales", and in a way, that is what they have done.

I walk into the Ty Gwyn Tea Shop in Gaiman. There are pictures of welsh chapels and love spoons hung on the walls. Doilies and daffodils adorn the quaint pine tables, all set for tea. I could be in Treprior (old family farm) and I begin to shake. A woman hears the bell and emerges wearing an apron. A deep breath: "Siarad Cymraeg?" I ask hesitantly. "Ahhh ydwy! Croesawa Gaiman! Ble ach chan?" (Ahhhh yes! Welcome to Gaiman! Where are you from?) The welsh rolls off her tongue as if she´s from Abereiron. She even speaks English like a Welsh person, with a lovely, heavy accent. I´m completely overexcited, and immediately want to phone my mam, my mam-gu. She serves us a tray of bread and butter, welsh cakes, bara brith, scones and endless tea. Proper tea. I discover that this woman has been to Kidwelly Castle, has driven through Newtown and that her family are from Lampeter. She speaks welsh at home, and Spanish of course. Her kids learn Welsh in school. This is far more welsh than the part of Wales I grew up in. I keep shaking my head and grinning in disbelief.

Puerto Madryn is also the breeding ground for the Southern Right Whale. On a grey, drizzly afternoon, we take a boat trip to get up close and personal. A dinghy full of expectant tourists holding impotent cameras, we head for the nearest fin. It is a mother and a rare white calf. Like an albino, mottled and ivory white. The whales are not intimidated by the boat at all, and we spend the 2 hours absoltely surrounded by these massive creatures. Hearing, feeling their breath, watching them dive away from the gulls trying to peck at them, seeing the babies lolling over their mothers, tired with milk. Being so near the whales is incredible. Much much bigger than our boat, we are staring them in the eyes. So close I could reach out and stroke them.

We also go to a penguin colony (a million penguins, so many they become passe) and get pretty close to the obese elephant seals slobbing along the shore. At one point two alpha males nearly have a scrap, and one has to peg it (i use that term loosely) for fear of attack from his fatter opponent.

Nestled in the highest valley in Argentina, just before the many rivers reach their Pacific destination, finishing their nutritious journey through the Andes, is a town called El Bolson. A ´non-Nuclear zone´, it is full of hippies. Everyone we meet has moved here from other parts to build their own homes, raise kids, work on their crafts to sell at the beautiful market.

Completely by chance we end up staying with a man called Augustine Porro at Le Casa Del Viajero. He has built this beautiful place himself and he shows us round a couple of log cabins. "My children were born here" he points upstairs to one of the bedrooms. "My wife built that house" he points to the stone farmhouse which is now their main abode. We live, for a few blissful days, in a log cabin at the base of Mount Piltrequitron, by the crystal clear River Azul. We hike up the valley, through the forest, following the river to reach the canyon. The Cajon De Azul, where water thunders hundreds of feet below us and snow-capped mountains stretch high ahead. Further down, we dive into the deep river, and scramble out breathless. Ice cold glacial water. So pure you can drink it. The Welsh chose their Latin American home wisely. This is paradise.

Seven Days Seven Nights

Riding the Buenos Aires rollarcoaster: hold on, or get the hell off.

Miguel reclines idly on the Sunday morning sofa, smoke falling from his lips. Sunday is San Telmo´s day. The day when the whole of Avenida Dispensa brims with market traders, musicians, tango dancers, BA´s feather and leather crew. The sun shines on the busy cobbled streets which cobweb away from Plaza Dorrego. The vibe is ostensibly chilled. Over in Palermo it´s much the same thing. Market buzz, yuppies drinking Quilmes and cafe con leche, shopping, flirting. It´s very ´Brick Lane on a Sunday´ over there.

Miguel has been our nominal party catalyst during our week long stay at Hostel Tango. The first thing we did when we arrived in Buenos Aires was get robbed. The fury is dispersing, evaporating, leaving nothing but a bitter smile and a pile of fresh lessons to sift through. Everything of value was taken. Including our passports. It has taught us many things. The umimportance of possessions, the vitality of love. Resiliance and positivity are more valuable than MP3 players and laptops, travel light - or it will be forced upon you. (The first lesson was that if you get covered in white paint in South America, DO NOT STOP.) So, with only our clothes and our marbles, we have taken the Buenos Aires bull by the horns and given it a shake down.

The way of things here is to eat at midnight. Don´t even think of going to a club until 2am. Club 69 may well be perfect(except, of course, the name). Not too hot, not too cold, the beats massage your ribcage at just the right volume. It is, to me, what a movie club scene would look like when the hero wants to let loose. These heroes need to let their hair down. The boys spinning and flipping on stage are hot, the girls shaking their asses at them are hot. Everyone is hot and happy and drinking well-made 25 pesos cocktails. Miguel - a random Spaniard who has made it his mission to provide us night-life assistance - pushes us towards the VIP area, bottle of champagne in hand. The broad-shouldered bouncer nods sternly. ´Buenos chica´. The guys here look at me like they´ve never seen freckles before. One of the first phrases i have learnt is ´el esta mi novio´. That is my boyfriend. This doesn´t actually deter any of them.

Tango, the most smouldering, romantic dance I have ever seen, is everywhere. We see a 16 strong troup in a posh part of town. They finish the show by singing ´Don´t cry for me Argentina´. Cheesy and perfect. We went to the Recoleta Cemetary. We saw the crowds by Evita´s grave and sang her songs all the way round the labyrinth of spires and mausoleums.

We have learnt to love Buenos Aires again, despite her flaws. Maybe the flaws were ours, and we were being rough-hewed, moulded so that we fit rather than sticking out like the sore thumbs we really are. Today we cut loose the bowlines and head to Patagonia. Breeding whales and welsh speakers await us. Da Iawn.

Onwards and upwards.

High Class

The bus we board is more than posh, a virtual airship. More legroom than I know what to do with, seats wider than most arm chairs. Movie screens. Food. Booze.

Prompted by the news from Konar that he was getting food and drink forced upon him by the good people of Thailand on their buses, I thought it only proper to document the luxury we found here.

There has been talk of champagne. There has been talk of nothing but the free food and booze that is to be lavished upon us. Two hours in to the 18 hourdrive to Buenos Aires, we watch with eyes like puppies, following every move made by our driver-waiter as he prepares our trays. Dinner is placed in my lap, a beer in my hand, swaying slightly with the undulation of the bus as it cruises towards BA.

The wait has made us hungry. The food comes in airline style sachets and packets. The message is to devour everything in front of you. We methodically knock back the small burger (the presence of the naked burger threw me - a lone burger as a starter?), chew thoughtfully on the roll of ham and cheese on a cocktail stick - plus olive and stone. Dig the last of the cream cheese from its casing - plus crackers - and then start on the mystery cross-section of meat with ham and a boiled egg at its centre. The bed of mash swiftly follows, plus sachet of salt, paper napkin and the coffee creamer. The waiter arrives in time to stop us eating the tray itself.