La Paz to Peru

http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanglow/

Okay, this blogger thing is v slow so iñve posted some more pics on flickr...theres the link. also theres a great dan cruickshank video about some of the places we´ve been on here.... http://www.viddler.com/explore/enperu/videos/76/?secreturl=73081834

Anyway where were....bolivia i think. i´m trying to put up some pics of the witches market and tiwanaku. Anyway left la paz, really cool place actually and headed to the largest navigable lake in the world which is Lake Tititcaca. Stayed in a place called copacabana but it was a bit chilly and decided to book a bus straight to cusco. The bus journey was a day one for once and we passed through more of the altiplano desert with andean mountains and small farming communities. On the way there were some amazing adobe buildings aswell as proper hovels! people living in little hovels...thats the only word for them but they were in amazing surroundings near the beginning of the sacred valley to cusco. Anyway Cusco was great, so old and so well planned and so well preserved, better than any other city i had seen so far! The inca stonework is still visible perfectly jointed and there is a great combination of grand and modest squares and spaces with not a hude amount of traffic. The place is ofcourse a tourist centre but there are some amazing buildings here. Reminded me of the gothic qtr in barcelona, lotsd of little alleyways to get lost in etc. Anyway the main reason people come here is for macchu picchu....(i still cant spell it)...so we decided to book a trip there. Becasue it was waaay too expensive to book the inca trail and becasue it has a 3 month waiting list we took a tour that went away for 4 days and 3 nights. the first day we got taken up to the top of a mountain and cyhcled down. We didnt know it at the time though but our driver was hungover and keptfalling asleep when we pulled over. But we got down on our bikes for a well earned rest. We were with loads of crazy isrealis and a cool dutch girl called....something de vreies....he he....can never remember her name but we all becamed buddies straight off. The second day was spent on a seemingly endless walk. We apparently took up a bit of the inca trail and that was cool with a great footpath hugging the mountains. Then it was back on a long road. We walked from 7am to about 5pm...now thats a long way...But at the end we got to some cool hot water natural spas and spent a couple of hours there.
The next day ended up being another crazy day of walking, except mainly on a railway line that ran toi agua calientis at the foot of machu picchu mountain. The city of macchu picchu is incredible. perched realy really high on a mountain top. its amazing!!! Anyway the photos show it, wow, what a place. By this time we had little confidence in our guide so i left the group before sunrise in order to see the sun from the classic viewpoint! After three days of walking the walk to the top from one end of the city to the other nearly killed me but when i got there i simply watched the sun rise....wow, the beams were shooting down from the surrounding mountains and eventually the whole city was alighted....amazing!!! spent most of the day there before getting the train back to cusco for must have sleep. But now, after the trip we were all feeling a bit unsettled in the stomachs and the tour operator wanted even more cash off us...so is you go to peru never go with peru tours.....they´re rubbish...but macchu picchu is so worth it!!!
Annnnnyway heading to nasca next, overnight bus tonight to see the mysterious lines in the sand...
Oh and if you´re wondering, macchu pitchu was found b an american hiram bingham in 1911. Apparently the spanish only got 1% of the inca gold and the rest was sent to another place deep in the amazon, a 60 day walk directly to the east where the sun rises on the winter solstice.....i heard that from another guide....anyway hope the pics upload, if not chekc them out on flickr....