The Lares Trek for CRY - Cusco Ruins and full trek day 1

We´ve got our breath back a bit now so thought we´d add a bit more about the trek. It´s been a funny day for us now that everyone has left, and neither of us is feeling 100% - hardly surpsising I suppose! We´ve therefore decided to have a chilled out afternoon before we leave Cusco this evening. As you can imagine a lot has happened this week so we´re not going to post it all in one go but thought we´d better write up sooner rather than later so that it´s still fresh in our minds. We´ll also be doing a piece for the CRY website so will link to that when it is up there.

So, going back a week...

After an afternoon of wandering, some of us went out for a quiet drink on Friday night, but most people were very tired and quite a few had already begun to show some signs of altitude sickness ie headaches, sickness, shortness of breath to name but a few. The first of many briefings from our group leader Kelsoe (bit of a running joke throughout the week that we have had just a few long briefings!) left most people feeling very anxious on top of it all as we were warned that it was pretty much certain that some of the group would be unable to complete the trek. I think it´s fair to say that the altitude issue had been played down before we came out to Peru, but that´s also understandable. Basically you don´t know how you´ll react until you head up there and it has nothing to do with fitness - it is purely a matter of luck.

So, with no small amount of trepidation, on Saturday morning we headed up as a group to see some of the ruins just outside Cusco, mainly to get everyone used to the altitude. It was the same area that we had seen a few days before, but it became immediately clear that the local guys we had with us (from a company aptly named SAS!) really knew their stuff and we were able to find out more about the fascinating world of the Incas. In fact the local crew were absolutely brilliant all week, as was the English guide Simon who lives out here full time so also knows the area very well. We were also astounded by the quality of the food that the SAS guys have produced for us, all cooked from scratch in the middle of nowhere!

Anyway (digressing already!) by the end of Saturday several people were very unwell and as we were preparing to leave the city early on Sunday morning to start the trek proper at much higher altitude it was more than a little concerning. Fortunately we were both fine and of course we had the advantage of being in Cusco a few days in advance of the group. We still had no idea how our bodies would cope with heading higher, but we were more than ready to give it our best shot. After leaving the hotel at around 6am and spending a few hours on the bus, we arrived at our starting point and after amusing the local kids with our warm up we were off.

We were joined en route by some llamas (truly ridiculous creatures but cool to have around) as we wound our way up past a very lovely river and over the hills. You may be surprised to hear that we were amongst the first people to arrive at the lunch stop - we certainly were! It was also a good opportunity to get to know some of our fellow trekkers a bit better as we were happlily chatting away as we walked - so far so good. After refuelling we took a brief trip on the bus again, which was infinitely more scary than the trekking (remember the Peruvian driving stories and add lots of tight corners!) before our final ascent to our camp for the night. We arrived at around 5pm , so just time to set up our beds for the night before it got dark very quickly at just after 6.

I should add that by the end of Sunday four people had already headed back to Cusco as they were so unwell. Of course it was bitterly disappointing for them all to have to stop, and we all knew that it could be any of us next. Therefore when I was feeling especialy unwell on Sunday night I began to panic slightly, but fortunately I woke up feeling fine again on Monday. Good job really as this was to be the first of two much more challenging days.