Out of the Andes

Since the 24th January a lot has happened... This morning I woke up in Lima.

After the 4th or 5th time back at the clinic with full on Giardia diagnosed again Tanya and I decided to email Project Trust seeing if anything could be done more that we hadn't already. We'd educated the boys on hand washing before cooking, advised on using different chopping board for meat/veg/etc, avoided salads and ice and all sorts but still we were getting really ill. The response was not quite what we expected though! We had a call the next day from the British Embassy saying "hang on in there!" and "how are you feeling?", "We'll get you out soon, we're looking for a new project" which was really surreal! I'd just spoken to Karen on the phone and been saying "yeah we're here for good". That night was Tanya's birthday so we had an Indian meal and stayed in a nice hotel in San Blas. For the next few days we had constant contact with PT who were booking us a flight to Lima and looking for new projects in Latin America so we started packing! No-one at Azul Wasi knew though so it was white-lies of "We're organising stuff" when Franco came to the window to ask what was going on, "why so messy amiga?"

This is when Tanya and I booked a US$35 train ticket to Machu Picchu... We can't live an hour away from it for 5 months and not actually go! On the 28th we caught the locals bus to Urubamba and from there another one to Ollantaytambo (all about US$2) and then the train up to Aguas Calientes. The change from dusty mountain to lush jungle mountains was amazing. The river was so full though, crashing through the valley.

We stayed in a US$10 hostel that night and got up at 3.30am to catch the SECOND bus up to MP. Yeahhhhh. This meant we could get a ticket for "Huayna Picchu", the mountain at the back you can clib for a good view back down to Machu Picchu. We got into the park at about 6.20 after the windy bus ride up. I can't descirbe how beautiful it is up there - so many different flowers of all colours, dense lush jungle, clouds, mountains (that look like typical kids drawing mountains) all around with valleys and gorges. The mountains far off all had snow on them! And then in the middle of it all you come across a huge city of ruins! It's amazing.

Huayna Picchu was hard (steep slippery steps) but worth it. We had to wait a little for the cloud to clear but once it did it was a stunning view. I will put up some pictures soon. Once back in Cusco we said bye to the boys and new Prfe, and to Alcides who made us a bit alte for our flight but it was all fine, and then headed to Lima. Since we have been here everything has happened so fast...