Lares Day 3

Sunday May 11th

I felt a fair bit better today when I woke up, and it didn't feel as cold. So when we got our wake up call at 6am, I was a bit shocked to see all the white outside. About 3 cm of snow had fallen overnight, and that was what had caused the tents to collapse. Because we hadn't seen the snow that night, it was a bit of a shock to us. But it was warmer. The layer of snow did sort of act like an insulator from the wind, so I did have a better nights sleep (except for the bit where the tent was on my face).

Anyway after breakfast we set off. Today was nearly all downhill, descending from 4200 down to 3000. It was not too hard, and as ususal we were passing kids and handing out weets ( you aren't reall supposed to give sweets, but we were out of all the other presents). We did have about an hour and a half in the snow, because it was a slow start to the descent, and it was 4000 before the snow disappeared.

Overall it was a fairly easy walk. This time we did see some Inca ruins on our trip, as we headed back towards the sacred valley. I did have other things on my mind, the Premiership was finishing up that day and it was a big showdown between ManU and Chelsea. Obviously I wasn't going to get to see it, but as we got closer to civilisation I was checking my phone to see if I had coverage.

And just as we got to our lunch stop I did. It was good news, ManU won. That made me feel a lot better, and I managed to eat a reasonable sized lunch.

After that we headed to Ollantaytambo, where we had been a few days previously. It was a festival day (and also Mother's day in Peru, also a big day) and so there was a lot of dancing in the streets. We had an hour to wait for our train connection to Machu Picchu, so we persuaded our guide to take us to a local corn beer house. This is a local brew that old ladies sell to locals, and which sort of tastes like a cider and white beer cross. It was OK, but you wouldn't want to drink more than a pint. I only had about a third of a pint I guess, the guide had a fair bit more. The weirdest thing about this 'pub' would normally be the Guinea Pigs running about the floor, but to be honest we are kind of getting used to this.

Then we were on the train. It was a spectacular journey, but we were all a bit too tired to do anything about it. We just ate our airplane style meals they gave us. We got to our destination, which is the town of Aguas Calientes. When we got there, there was another party on the street. We checked into our hostel, had a few normal beers, and then headed out to the town square where it seemed like the entire population of the town was out dancing. The pubs were doing 4 for the price of 1 happy hours, but we could only stay for 1 round (which was 4 drinks) as we had to be back in bed by 10.30 so we could get up in time to see Machu Picchu.