Day 6 - yesterday was easy, why not go for 18km?

Effy tells us that whilst yesterday was hard, today will be much easier. Sure we'll be walking 18km, but it's very flat and no high passes. I believe him. Bastard.

Clearly the Peruvian idea of 'flat' is anything that isn't completely vertical. Sure we don't have a 4,400m pass. We have a 4,200m one instead.

Previously Effy told us the three principles of Peruvian culture - work hard, don't steal, don't lie. Clearly he believes "two out of three ain't bad"! I should have known better - previous he'd promised massages and beer at the end of the day, and I believed him then as well.

A beautiful sunrise. Little did I know.

A very neat farmhouse with an even neater stack of drying adobe mud-bricks.

The 'flat' walk.

Our trusty James Brown and porter.

Kim demonstrating her "I'm a dead celebrity and get me out of here" technique. Unfortunately, it didn't work.

The pass we came over the previous day is on the horizon, on the snow edge on the left of the photo.

More of the flat trail.

Luckily, the sound of my heart pounding and the glazed look in my eyes doesn't come across in the photo.

Kim makes friends with a local boy. Either that, or she was asking him to carry her. He probably could have.

More than 2/3rds the way through the day's walk. I'm plotting how to kill them. Does it show?

Clearly suffering from cerebral anoxia, I stupidly agree to try a bit of soccer with local boys. I can't play normally, why would I think I could at 3,800m? I think it's the euphoria of actually descending.

Our camp after another long, exhausting, but rewarding day. It's a cloudless night and the sky is blazing with stars.

Our third trek day - pushing deeper into the mountains

We leave the Sacred Valley and start heading towards Lares. We'll be doing more consistent climbing today, so only a 6km trek to help continue the process of our bodies adapting.

It feels bizarre - you look up a nicely sloping track going through a canyon. You're only carrying about 5kg. Down in Sydney you'd be doing a steady 5 to 6 km/hr, but not up here. Due to the altitude we are at (about 3,500m) with each breath we take in only about 2/3rds the amount of air compared to sea level. Also, because of the lowered oxygen pressure, our blood can't fully saturate with oxygen. Instead of being up near 100% here it is at 90%. These two changes may not sound like much to you, but being here it feels horrifying. A light slope and a 5kg pack feels like a steep hill and a 30kg pack!

But the views are gorgeous!

We keep scanning the cliffsides for the tombs that dot every inaccessible face. Rather than bury their dead, the Inca mummified the body then placed them in niches carved out of the rock face and covered the opening with mud bricks. Even poor people were interred with their favourite ceramic pots for use in the afterlife (and higher ranking people had gold and jewellry) so these tombs have suffered the predation of grave robbers since the Spanish conquest.

We spot one that has been plundered - but surely that shadowed figure is the mummy still in place?

Effy says no, but I'm convinced!

The track we are on is also the main route between villages for the local people. No roads up here - paved or not. We come across a local herbal healer (onion doctor) and drop in to see if we can get some eucalyptus oil for nasal congestion (the Peruvians have brought across a half-dozen species of Australian gum trees and they are flourishing here, well away from the pests that prey on them in Aus).

No luck - but these onion healers are critical to the local people, acting as combined doctors, nurses and midwives.

And then we get to meet some real locals - a herd of alpaca being brought to town. They've clearly heard of my run-in with the vicuña and are very suspicious that I might try something similar. Good country folk, they aren't in favour of any of this cross-species rubbish!

They hurried off, no doubt feeling very relieved that their good reputation was still intact!

Later on we met a group of children at a shelter, hanging around (as kids world-over) do.

We stopped to share some food & drink with them, and to laugh with the boys who were having fun with one of the donkeys (I've rarely met a more patient beast).

We then used our support vehicle to get over the next pass. It was at 4,650m - at this altitude our lungs took in about half the normal amount of air, and our oxygen saturation would have been well below 90% - we weren't sufficiently adapted as yet to attempt it on foot.

And I'm so glad we had the vehicle. It never snows at this altitude in Peru. Well, never except for now. For Nicole it was her first look at snow, her first snowball fight, and her first snow angel.

It had been a very big day.

Our first trek day - the Sacred Valley and an animal rescue shelter

Ok, we're up for it. We've seen the culture, visited the kids, sampled the pets ... oops, food. Time to hit the road.

Our first day is off to the Sacred Valley - the fertile birthplace of Inca culture. As we travel along we are stunned by the locations of the Inca ruins - high in the mountains. These tough guys didn't go for the easy route. No, they had a lovely valley with a reliable river running through it. So what did they do?

They trudged hundreds of metres up the mountain side to find a nice convenient crag (it almost killed us at this altitude just to walk up the paths, let along drag building stones weighing hundreds of kilos through to many tonnes). Once there they built their houses and set about converting the 45 degree slope to an ordered series of horizontal terraces, perfectly suited to growing a vast variety of corn, potatoes, etc.

When you consider that the Inca empire only flourished for about 100 years, the shear mass of structures they put together (and so exactly - no slipshod work here) is doubly impressive. They were a culture without writing, based largely on community commitment - everyone devoting months each year to labour on community projects - and they showed the awesome results that people can achieve if they work with each other, rather than against.

Our next stop was a local animal shelter. Animal welfare isn't seen the same way in Peru as it is in Australia, but you still get the same wonderful passionate people who dedicate their lives to animals in need.

Ok, this one wasn't suffering anything more than a severe case of embarrassment, but still I felt for it. Why do people like breeding hairless dogs and cats? I know they are warm etc, but that's why God invented hot water bottles.

We also met some puma, coati, llamas (no vicuña thank heavens - I was starting to get nervous) and some condor.

Ok, so that last one isn't a llama, but you can see my point about hairless dogs.

I was really pleased when we saw the condor. Terribly endangered, they are huge birds - the largest flying bird with a wingspan metres across.

But for once I wasn't the centre of cross-species attention! One young bird, with a wingspan of a mere 2 metres decided that our guide Effy was his long- lost parent, and it was time for a bit of father-chick bonding.

Given they normally use their razor-sharp beak ripping rotten carcasses to shreds, I don't think I'd want a love-kiss either!

I'm starting to worry about these Peruvian animals ...

Our second trek day - off to see "Sexy Woman"!

Clearly there really is a theme here! Randy Vicuña, Korma Sutra, a bit of condor love, and now Sexy Woman? Did I miss the X-rating in the fine print?

But no (perhaps sadly, perhaps luckily), it's just the easy to remember pronunciation of Sacsaywaman (also spelled as Sacsayhuaman and also as Saqsaywaman - the Peruvians are incredibly consistent in their lack of consistency in spelling words!).

Sacsaywaman is the remains of a massive fortress built to protect the Inca capital, Cusco. I say remains, but don't imagine a few lines of rocks on the ground. This place is MASSIVE. The invading Spaniards and then subsequent generations have done their best to pull the place down and use it as a quarry, but what remains is huge. Thankfully the site is now fully protected.

(those two ant-like figures are Paul and Mark)

Ok, corny, but cute right?

Those notches in the rock above me are where they seated logs to help lever the carefully shaped and polished rock - weighing hundreds of tonnes - into place!

The finish of our pre-trek day - sampling Peruvian delicacies!

We were now ready to finish off our day, having been to the school, seen the market, chilled out in a 5-star monastery. What better way to draw the day to an end than to enjoy a lovely Peruvian delicacy?

Sampling Peruvian delicacies!

So we headed off to the beautifully-named "Korma Sutra". maybe not what you'd expect in Peru, but it came highly recommended (and maybe there is a theme emerging after my vicuña incident?).

The restaurant was set on a hill overlooking the old part of Cusco, and our ever-helpful guide Mark had arranged a lovely surprise to start our dinner. But before that, our three princesses (L-R: Kim, Julie, Nicole) needed to present themselves appropriately for the adoring crowds (of waiters)
...

Please note the special of the day - Alpaca chili. It was delicious! I did skip the Alpaca yoghurt though ...

So on to our dinner surprise ... Tandoori guinea-pig!

"Cuy" (pronounced coy) has been a Peruvian staple for centuries, with the people living with, sleeping with, and eating their guinea pigs from before the time of the Incas (talk about a well-rounded relationship!). It's a very ecologically friendly meat animal for Peru (so I'm told) and today we were going to try it!

Yea! (?!?). Maybe they were using the guinea pigs we saw at the market?

So we all (with the exception of our very-happy-to-be-vegetarian Julie) enthusiastically/bravely/cautiously/nervously decided to try it ...

The pictures tell the story:

The verdict? 4 out of 5 thought it was "OK", one out of 5 loved it. And the one who loved it? Nicole! Clearly there's a vicious carnivore hiding behind those innocent looks!