And then we reached the climax of our whole trip: Cuzco, the Inca trail and Machu Picchu. Hurrah! Within a couple of hours of reaching Cuzco I'd already fallen in love with the city. It's such a beautiful place, lots of narrow cobbled streets, white colonial buildings, red tiled roofs, Inca stonework still all over the place...Although rather unfortunately also swarming with gringos. Cuzco's undoubtedly the tourist capital of the whole of the Andes, a fact that the locals have latched onto with a vengence - it's impossible to walk around the centre without having finger-puppets, postcards, watercolour paintings and massage offers shoved into your face every few steps. Hence most commonly used phrase in Cuzco of 'No gracias', which the Irish Pub Paddy's have even stuck on a T-shirt.

Cuzco's a great place to get pissed in, largely due to the huge number of free drinks on offer around the main plaza - thanks to Paul on our first night in Cuzco we managed to get really quite drunk for not very much at all, took in six different bars and clubs, and got back to the hostal at 4 in the morning. Hurrah! And most entertaining was Paul's disco dancing - never before have I seen a grown-man jumping around with a finger-puppet on each hand, making them snog each other. And probably never again - without a doubt he is the most childish, immature adult that I've ever met. (But we love him anyway.)

After a hungover day spent wandering round the city in a daze we then went - most exciting - paraglidng over the sacred valley. Hurrah! It was quite good fun running off the edge of a cliff ('You're sure there's enough wind?' 'Yes.' 'Really?' 'Yes.' 'No, really?') strapped into something that sort of resembled a giant padded baby seat, with an instructor and parachute attached. And then very strange (and also very cool) to be literally sitting in mid-air, in the giant baby seat, swooping around for about half an hour, circling round on the same thermals for a while before gliding out right over the valley, with nothing seemingly supporting me. Such good views too. Ooh, yeah.

And having done a spot of paragliding we then went and trekked the world-famous Inca trail. As you do. Hurrah! Paul's done the Inca trail about fourteen times (insane), but we felt lucky enough to be doing it once, as both the trail and Machu Picchu are in danger of being closed - the trail due to the increased number of landslides happening on it, and Machu Picchu because it's actually sinking with the weight of tourists that clamber all over it every day (fat bastards). In fact we couldn't walk all the way to Machu Picchu because of a landslide blocking the very end of the trail, so had to walk further than usual down to the nearest town to the ruins, and then get a bus up.

For some reason, we had it fixed in our minds that the Inca trail would be a doddle compared to our other two treks, largely because every gringo in Cuzco seems to do it, no matter how old or fit or healthy. What we didn't realise however is that every other gringo does it without carrying huge rucksacks and tents and food on their backs, like us. Bugger. The Inca trail in fact turned out to be just as tough as the other two treks - loads of steep Inca steps to climb up and down, which completely does my knees in, 18 km of walking a day, 3:30, 4:30, and 5:30 am starts, and three passes to climb over. But somehow, overall, it seemed much more bearable than the first two treks - maybe because it was our third one, and by then we knew what to expect, and could cope with it better.

I definitely have a bit of a love-hate relationship with trekking. Blisters, painful feet, sore knees, stiff backs, panting up hills, struggling to get up ridiculously early when there's still ice on the tent, instant mash and lumpy porridge, shivering in my sleeping bag at night, that would all pretty much cover the 'hate' side of things, but what more than makes up for it is the stunning scenery that you get to walk through, and the sense of being right out in the middle of nowhere with nobody else around.

Although that previous sense of isolation was lost a bit on the Inca trail. (So many gringos!) And everyone else with porters to carry their rucksacks, and set up and take down their tents, and to bring them hot water to wash in, and cook four course meals for them, which would be eaten on tables and chairs set up for them when they arrived at their lunch or camping spots. Four course meals! On tables and chairs! We couldn't quite believe it. And I don't think anyone else could quite believe us - VentureCo are possibly the last organisation going who still treat the Inca trail like a proper trek - which led to quite a lot of respect and a fair amount of incredulous comments. (ŽLook, those guys did it with their rucksacks on, they're amazing!' 'Ooh, I don't know how you do it, I take my hat off to you.' 'Isn't it fantastic, you get all your tents set up, your food cooked for you...' 'Er, no...') And it was so satisfying to do it properly, and to be self-sufficient, and not feel like were spoilt gringos or anything, and we couldn't help but just feel a little bit smug...

As for the 'love' side of trekking, the Inca trail was undoubtedly just as stunning as the first two treks, especially the last day, when we'd left the campsite by 6:30 am and were walking in the early morning sunshine down the old Inca path. Our guide Henry got us to stand at the edge of a valley on the trail with our eyes closed to just listen to the stillness, and it was so incredibly peaceful. On our last day we also came across the isolated and wonderfully quiet Winay Wayna ruins, a little 80% intact Inca town with steep agricultural terraces hidden in the side of a valley, from which there were amazing views out over the tropical mountains to snow-capped peaks in the distance - so overwhelmingly beautiful and peaceful that I was, I'm afraid to say, almost in tears. Nowhere has struck me before quite like that place did - and standing in that sort of setting, in the middle of Inca ruins, listening to Inca history, is just past words to describe...I felt so incredibly lucky to be there, and so sad that it's not going to be open to the rest of the world for that much longer.
(Continued...)