Day 13 - Arrive in Cuzco

Today we awoke at 3am, showered had breakfast and met with the rest of our GAP adventure group for a 4am start to Lima airport. After briefly introducing ourselves to the other 14 people within our group we set off to catch our flight to Cuzco were we would be embarking on the Inca Trail. (I cant say we are looking forward to this experience and are expecting the next few days to be extremely physically hard and gruelling) but we are defiantly up for the challenge. Kind of wished we had trained a bit more for it now though, oh well.....

Our group consisted of some interesting characters from America, Canada, Norway and England and were generally a nice bunch of people. We did have our reservations about a couple of people who seemed very unfit to be doing the Inca Trail, i know its rotten to say but at the same time it made us both feel quite relived as we are not exactly the fittest two people in the world !

We arrived in Cuzco at 7am after flying over some pretty spectacular snow capped mountain ranges. The effect of the high altitude was almost immediate. My legs felt all funny walking through the airport and we both felt very light headed and slightly out of breath, hope this settles down before the trek as 90% of it is uphill.

Outside the airport we were approached by some local people in Cuzco who were selling things, one of these things were coca leaves, which is especially good for helping you to accustom to the high altitude. I have to say they tasted terrible i had one leaf and decided id give up and try the sweets instead which were much nicer.



We arrived at our hotel and had a briefing along with the rest of the group about the torture we had let ourselves in for. Once we had discussed the plan of action for the following week we went into the main square of Cuzco for a look around and to grab some lunch.

Adrian was very pleased to see that on almost every menu in the square 'Guinea Pig' was served, either fried, baked, grilled or roasted !! He has informed me that he will be sampling this dish before we leave Cuzco, so to all you animal lovers out there beware over the next few days, there may well be a picture of Adrian's dinner
served up for all to see (oh and they serve it up whole (head with ears attached included!!)



Cuzco is a lovely little town with lots happening and going on, it is a very historical place with lots to see and do. We plan on trying to fit in a few tours before we start the Inca Trail.

More Pictures