Inca Trail aka Inca Stairs

Next stop: Lima. Having a two hour flight is definitely much nicer than torturing myself for 24 hours in buses for ... well ... "smaller" people. Have I mentioned that I feel quite often like that guy in Gulliver's Travels? Especially interesting are small-sized baños ... ;o) Unfortunately I couldn't enjoy Lima too much since I still felt sick. Luckily pharmacies replace doctors and I finally got the wonder medicine ... without description ... without anything ... but it worked! Overall I think Lima wasnt too impressive ...
So I quickly continued to Arequipa, beautiful colonial town further south. I did a nice tour to Colca Canyon and enjoyed sipping Pisco Sour in hot springs in the mountains :o) The biggest attraction had been yet ahead. Inca Trail :o) For that I again had to take a night bus with direction Cuzco. Actually I had the best seat in the bus. Cama primer piso! Actually this means that you can fully stretch your legs and have comfortable sleep ... if you're not taller than 160cm ... back to Gulliver ;-) After another night of body twisting I reached Cuzco. Beautiful city, once the heart of the Inca Empire! Beautiful houses and streets and seemed quite peaceful.

Next morning 6am pick-up for Inca Trail. 4 days hiking (or better climbing) the Inca Trail (stairs). Luckily it didnt rain during these 4 days except for one night. The group consisted of really nice people so it was great fun. Special greetings to Ireland in Montana here! At the last day, after getting up 3:30am in the morning just to sit and wait for 2 hours until 5:30am, we reached Puerta del Sol ... usually there is this wonderful view on Machu Picchu. For us it could have better been called Puerta de las Nubes with view on No mucho picchu. Was kind of funny to see all these deeply disappointed tourist faces sitting and waiting for the clouds to disappear. Nevertheless a fantastic spot to take a picture :o) Just imagine Machu Picchu in the back ... I could copy paste it in photoshop ;-)

Though after a few 100 metres of hiking down we got the fantastic view! Luckily! It's seriously amazing!

After 4 days of hiking, limited washing and adventurous rest rooms (wow!) it was time to have some well deserved drinks! And yes guides, you were drunk!

No time to recover! After Inca Trail the next bus for La Paz was waiting!