Lares Bars

The last morning of our 3 day stay in Cusco we were woken at 5am, (before even the pigeon gun had a chance to go off ) to head off on the Lares trek. This is an alternate track to the Inca trail. We like everyone we met on the track did not opt for this deliberately but because we did not book early enough to get a place on the Inca trail.

Tramping offers one plenty of time to ponder and I walked up Lares valley on the first day I was found myself astounded that that 95 % of earths population see the whole world as a big rubbish bin. Whilst it was not astounding that 95% Peruvian males see the whole of Peru as a big urinal, it was a little surprising that very little effort ever seems to be made to conceal the fact that one is relieving themselves. It’s pretty much like paying by visa people just flop it out everywhere.

Our guide Harry or Henry, we are still not exactly sure was a great guy but unfortunately his English was about as good as the average NZ taxi driver so it was hard to make a lot of sense of what he was saying. Our cook was fantastic, serving up Alpaca in many different ways trying to disguise it as beef. Our horseman seemed nice but had the people skills of Quechua tribesman who had lived his whole live in a remote Andean community spending most of his time with horses and Alpaca’s.

The highlight of the tack was a game of soccer with some young (aged 7-9) locals in Huacahuasi. We played a small game of 3 vs 3. Smithy and I teamed up with one of the locals, but for us it was always going to be a very tough away fixture. We were playing at an altitude of 3800 M and the pitch had a number of pot holes, large rocks and piles of animal defecation. The goal of the match came after Smith made a dashing run down the side line, was able to fend off one of the small children and cut back inside another, he then sent in perfect cross which Churchill volleyed home between the rocks to give us a two goal lead. Our third team member who’s most significant contribution to the match until that point had been to flop his willey out and piss all over the pitch then proceeded to pick up hand fulls of lama crap and shower us with it. The locals came back to win 3-2 despite only scoring twice with some Spanish counting helping them out. Nevertheless it was a good match.

The trip finished with us climbing Machu Pichu, which is one of those places everyone should go to. It is hard really to describe but perhaps by stating that despite their being thousands of other tourists (including Americans and the French) the place did not loose its mystery and magnificence. The views are amazing and it is just staggering to think that these little punters could build something like it.

PS: I would be very intrigued to know how is it that ‘a lot’ is two words ‘at least’ is two words ‘of course’ is two words but ‘nevertheless’ managed to somehow whack itself together to be one. If anyone can shed some light on the matter I would be delighted to hear an explanation.