Incas, deadly snakes and one big lake

So here I am now in Puno, a slightly drab and uneventful city on the shore of Lake Titicaca and the perfect place to catch up on my rather neglected blog.

I have seen an incredible number of incredible places in the past fortnight and I have had a lot of laughs with the group I have been travelling with, although I would still like to return to Peru and spend more time contemplating the locations we have rushed through.

The most anticipated part of this trip was the Inca Trail and it didn´t fail to disappoint me. The famous trek comprises four days of strenuous, intense walking and anyone who tries to tell you it isn´t hard is lying through their teeth! Aside from its length, however, the hike was no harder than some of the others I have undertaken in the past three months and it was well worth every aching muscle for the fabulous scenery we were rewarded with. Our guide, Jeremy, had good enough English to understand our senses of humour and the porters - all local indigenous men - were amazing people, so there was a great vibe and as a group we really bonded and helped each other to retain morale in the difficult times. The weather stayed dry and sunny, so I am a lot less pasty than usual (!) and it made the camping element a lot easier. I have never seen such human strength as that of the tiny porters who scuttled past us up the high stone steps for miles and miles (around 35km in total) carrying our duffle bags and tents etc on their shoulders - which made me feel a bit uncomfortable to tell the truth, especially as GAP appear not to pay them enough to live on (which we compensated for with good tips), but by South American standards they earn a semi-decent wage. The hardest part of the hike was the second day, which saw us climb the endless upward steepness of the Dead Woman´s Pass, and it is as usual the altitude that makes exercise so much more effort. Some of the group were still suffering from altitude sickness, a horrible breathless thing, but they managed to pull it off and we were a speedy group of hikers, often reaching our destinations over an hour before schedule. The trail was by no means over-run by tourists, as I had been led to believe, and if you set off mega early each day as we did, you can avoid the other tourists altogether. As my pace is neither the fastest nor the slowest, I found myself completely and contentedly alone at times and it is a truly humbling experience to find yourself looking down upon various Inca ruins against a glorious backdrop of mountains and cloudforest. The day we finally arrived at Machu Picchu I was quite exhausted and I think the half-asleep trancelike feeling only adds to the mystique of that first glimpse of the lost city appearing from behind an eerie mist. Unfortunately when we first arrived at the Sun Gate the mist was a little too thick and it was only when we started to descend down the steps to the site that the city appeared in all its glory - but in a way that only increased the appreciation. We spent some hours exploring Machu Picchu and listening to Jeremy´s information, but my concentration was as low as my energy levels and I was ready to sleep for days so I was actually glad when the time came to leave and eat lunch in the ugly tourist town of Aguas Calientes and reflect on the over-awing memory of the last four days.

No sooner had we reshuffled our backpacks back in beautiful Cusco and grabbed some quick showers (no time for laundry - yuk) and it was time to leave for the jungle, which I had managed to arrange to tag along with by booking directly through the lodge and by booking a flight with LAN Peru. Sailing in a canoe from Puerto Maldonado to the Cayman Lodge some three hours upstream, I caught my first glimpse of the Amazon and was struck dumb for some time by the power of its beauty and its strangeness to me. It is quite a feeling, to suddenly find yourself surrounded by murky brown water and tall trees and peculiar animal noises screeching into the silence around you, in the full knowledge that you are far far from civilisation and ´normality´. On the first night was took a night walk and were disappointed by the lack of animal activity, bar a few pretty fireflies and birds, but the next morning we were confronted by a Bushmaster - apparently the most deadly snake to be found in South America, which caused some alarm - leaping out on to the path ahead. Our guide for the jungle, Johnny, and his friend decided to kill the snake in front of us, which again raised some questions in my mind about responsible tourism, but selfishly I value my life too much to really condone their behaviour. Again a lot of hiking was involved in the excursion, and as it had rained in the night we ended up wading through several deep swamps, fully clothed, and heaven knows what was under that murky water but here I am to tell the tale with just a few mozzy bites and a scratch or two. In the evenings we were served typical delicious-but-simple Peruvian food and at one point the young jungle guys gave us an impromptu (and much needed) salsa lesson. I also spent some hours swinging in a hammock (before going out in a boat to find some baby caymans - part of the crocodile family - with their red eyes gleaming through the darkness) but the one thing that hampers my liking of jungle life definitively is the terrible humidity that consumes your energy and makes you feel grubby all the time. Needless to say, my journey into the jungle was one of the most exciting and unforgettable events of my life but I would be quite happy to never return to its odd sweatiness and undeniable danger.

We returned to Cusco once again before travelling by bus here, and that city has become quite a favourite for me. Once the centre of the Inca Empire, the city is unbelievably stunning and has a very safe and lively vibe to it, although it can get extremely irritating to have so many vendors shoving tack in your face every five minutes. But despite the fact that tourism has taken control, there is still something about Cusco that would make me happy to return there again and again. On Saturday night we went out on the town once again to dance the night away and our aching heads told the sorry tale the next morning at 6am when we were forced on to a day-long bus ride heading to Puno, complete with annoying, figure-quoting guide and plenty of stop-offs at yet more Inca sites - que peine! All Inca-ed out, we finally arrived here in Puno and the last couple of days have truly made my trip to South America complete.

The islands of Lake Titicaca are the kind of places that stick in your mind and your heart forever. I hadn´t even glanced twice at that part of the itinerary but visiting Isla Amantani yesterday and staying with a modest local family just made me wake up to Peru and see it for the wonderful place that it is. Before Amantani we spent time walking on Isla Taquile, where the locals all work as a sort of co-operative, alternating the opening days of their restaurants and sharing the profits of their handicrafts. The lake stretches out alongside like a calm blue oceanline and everything about it is peaceful - there is no crime and no need for police or lawyers. The men wear different types of the long, handmade hat depending on their marital and official status and the women choose their partners in life based on the quality of the hat the man has made. On Amatani, again there is no crime and no domestic violence (supposedly) and only the women wear the traditional dress, which includes big pom poms wrapped around stones for the single women to fight off any unwanted male attention! At night we each ate in the kitchen of our host family and were helped into our own costumes of this sort for the evening´s party, including two skirts worn on top of one another, which were very feminine but ageless at the same time and quite heavy to dance in. The principles of the island are ´don´t lie, don´t steal and don´t be lazy´, as on Taquile, and the only downfall of the community seems to be that many of the men have to leave to find work and only return at weekends, or sometimes not at all. It seems that here tourism is very controlled but very effective and is actually a positive influence on the people, as they have retained their traditions but benefit financially from the groups that flock there to get an insight into the culture. I have been irritated by the heavy tourism aspect of Peru and our guilty obligation to buy things at every corner, but in moderation and in controlled circumstances I can see how tourism is needed by a society in which the economy has fallen apart. At the same time, I don´t quite believe that what GAP and its contemporaries are achieving is truly responsible tourism and I worry that our presence on these people´s territory could instill the dangerous greed and the unquenchable desire that have gripped hold of Western society and will never let it go. Today we visited the floating islands of the Uros people, an ancient group of islands entirely made of reeds and soil when the Uros people fled the jungle to escape the aggressive Incas and other tribes, and it was so fascinating and so unusual. I hope that it never changes. With its reed houses that can be lifted and repositioned, and its charming, shy people, it is the most bizarre place I have ever seen and there is surely no place like it on earth.

Tomorrow we leave for the last day of this epic journey across Peru and will arrive in La Paz, Bolivia in the early evening. I cannot wait to see the reported colourfulness and vibrancy of this small, high city, but more than that I cannot wait to get home for Christmas. A big part of me is looking forward to no longer living out of a suitcase and grappling with my conscience as I flaunt my Westernness in the midst of this crazy, socially divided continent. I have learnt more here than I could ever have learnt sitting at home reading about it, and I have savoured every moment even if I can´t claim to have loved every moment. We were teaching the little girl of our host family some Christmas songs last night and it was silly and simple and beautiful. It made me feel so happy at the thought of being home for Christmas but also made me feel entirely at peace with where I am here and now and as though I am sure to return to South America one day. The connections we make with people when we are abroad are priceless and sudden and short-lived and strong and there is something in my heart which tells me I will continue to travel as long as I live, precisely to capture these fleeting feelings again.