Maccupitchu.......Wow

So on the final day of the trek we got to Maccupitchu, with Salkentay trek you arrive at aguas calliente which is an the bottom of the Maccupitchu mountain. The times of various things had already been arranged by the tour company, my train back to Cusco was set at 230. So even thou I got the bus up I only just had enough time for the tour and to see the sun gate and the Inca bridge before vetting the bus back down and to get on the train.

So we arrived at the main gate at 7 in the end and started our tour of the site. The first guy to get to Maccupitchu in the 1900's was an American, I forget this name but he wasn't even looking for Maccupitchu, he was trying to find a little town called Olltabochy, this little city is on the train line and I got to see a little of it and its also a great little incan city which had a colonial town built on it. So after finding Maccupitchu he came back some years after and recovered a lot of little artifacts from the site and made some assumptions about the use of the rooms. There are many temples and some rooms which they just don't know what they were for, like the three window temple, its a room that they were making and it had three windows but no idea what it was really for.

Some of the site was reconstructed in the mind 1960's as it was again a site of intense interest. There was a massive earthquake centred on Cusco in 1650 and this is the reason they believe that there is some damage at the site. There are not any sign of human destruction to the building. The site itself is huge and the tour with walking around the site took almost 3 hours no including the sungate or Inca bridge. The scale of the city is massive, running down one side of the city are terraces for agriculture, the constitution of which is awesome, they are built from large stones at the bottom, gravel and then sand and earth on top of that. Water that falls on the top trickles down to the next terrace, in this way the soil does not erode and each terrace gets water. Separating the terraces from the other part of the city as a large stair case with a series of water fountains running down the side. These are no water fountains as we would think of but its a small follow of water that has been directed down a series of rocks with groves in for the water to flow. It goes along one grove and then drops down to the next level under another rock and into another grove. The groves are man made and are uniform in size. We do not know what this is for, could be for drinking, watering the terraces in dry seasons as I was told that the water flows all year round from a natural spring near the top of the mountain.

The other two thirds of the city is temples and building for living in. There is an open area in the centre of the city for grazing alpaca.
The hike up to the sun gate was quite long again about 45 minutes and was quite steep uphill but the path was main of rocks that had been placed down to form huge steps. The view from the sun gate was incredible, can see the mount of mantupichu and hyna pitchufrom there.
Taking the bus down hill took 45 minutes and then back on to the train to arrive back at the family homestead by about midnight. Very exhausted but very little time to get ready as I had an early flight to Panama and then to Orlando to go visit my friend Vig and see cheerleading worlds 2014.

Aprendo espanol en Cusco

Saturday night I was invited to go watch Gabriela's father playing a rock covers band and he played some Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin so it was great. We started chatting in Spanish but I ran out of words pretty quickly but they do say any practice is good practice. After we headed to a biker bar to have a burger which was a nice change from the rice and pasta I have been having, not that I don't like rice and pasta.

Monday we had a double helping of class as it's holy week in Peru, they really go to town for the Easter week and have processions through the town with status of Jesus, pictures attached. The Jesus looks black because of the candles that they burn near him. So double class was hard, 4 hours melts the brain anyway but 8 just turns it to mush.

Tuesday me and Ollie decided to have some cuy, or Guinea pig for everyone else, I do have photos but I won't add them, ask if you'd like to see. We also have some alpaca steak, we tried to ask for separate plates but they ended up splitting the cuy down the middle and giving us half each and then bringing out the steaks so everyone looked at us oddly eating two meals between us, hahahahahaha. When I got back Gabriela informed me that there was a solar eclipse visible in Peru that night so we should wake up and try to see it, so set the alarm for 2 and got the camera ready. The cloud was ready and waiting to spoil the he view and we got some very iffy pictures of a reddish blob.

Wednesday we had another school trip this time to a wildlife sanctuary, they have lots of macaws because they cannot teach then to fly again once they have los the ability. However they can teach falcons and hawks with the use of some bait and the big gloves. They also have some pumas that were found as cubs in Lima, they have los their claws and don't know how to hunt and so cannot be released into the wild which is a shame. The highlight were the condors, they did a fly by of the group and they are much bigger than I expected.

Thursday was the last class and I have enjoyed learning a language and the challenges that come with it. I shall be continuing to learn and progress this when I get back as I did feel quite lost without being able to communicate in even a limited way with people along the way on this trip. I certainly like Cusco and Peru and feel that there is still a lot to see and do in south america as a whole.

After class finished, me Ollie and Gabriela took a little trip to devils balcony, which is a natural balcony which overlooks a little river. It is a nice little place, however when crossing the river I managed to slip and smash my knee and both mine and Gabriela's cameras. So my knee is slightly swollen, and badly cut which poses an issue for tomorrow as that the start of my trek. However I am more worried about the loss of the cameras :( EDIT  Gabriela's camera was fine after the rice trick, mine has finally died, leaving me with my phone for the trek and Maccupitchu.

Now is the time to trek to Maccupitchu and see Salkentay on the way.

The Top of Roraima

The Top.

So woke up and looked out the weather was clear.  Straight after pancakes, the food on this trip is awesome, we headed out to the window. Its just a rock formation that gives you a nice view of the top and of the other table mountain. Here there is also a piece of overhanging rock that gives you a really sense of the sheer size of the mountain. The top is 26 square kilometres and has a few animals that are only found here, the black frog being one, another being a little racoon that is cream and black, got a bad photo of the later. Once we had had our fill of the window it was time to head to the lagoon for a wash, this is a natural pool of rain water, that was supposed to be warmed by the sun during the day, but Alex our guide had been lying, it was freezing. The water was so clear however and there were quartz crystals on the bottom which glimmered in the sunlight very beautiful.

Back to the hotel for lunch and then another climb this time to the highest point on the mountain, great views which over looked the base camp an the approach as well as the climb, and got some awesome photos. We then we headed into a cave that extends into the mountain for 6km, Roraima is mainly sandstone and has quite a few little rivers running through it. My camera was not good enough to take any photos with the cave but it was small and damp, a few parts had me on my hands and knees to get through gaps.

As soon as the sun went down it was bed early as we had an early start for the decent from the top.