This will be our final blog entry and the last pearls of wisdom we’ll be sharing with you. Savour them. It has been an absolute pleasure keeping you all informed of our adventures, escapades and mishaps these past few months. Thank you for contributing multiple thousands of views to our blog. We couldn’t have done it without you.
When we left you last time we had just finished the Inca Trail and seen Machu Picchu in all its glory. The end of the Andean Adventure signalled the beginning of our final week in South America.
We decided to soothe our wearied muscles by going for a massage. Around Cusco’s central square – the Plaza de Armas - there were plenty of attractive Peruvian women offering an hour-long massage for an extremely cheap price; this bargain simply could not be missed. We opted for a Full-Body Inca Massage after quickly and firmly declining the offer to have a his-and-his massage. How an Incan massage is different to every other massage out there is still beyond us. We enjoyed our hour of pampering nonetheless.
The utmost planning had gone in to our Inca Trail booking so that we would be able to watch the Champions League Final upon our return. Our original plan had been to watch the final in Paddy's Pub, the highest Irish Pub in the world at 3400m. However, due to circumstances out of our control we did not quite make it to the Pub in time for Kick-Off. Nonetheless, the Final was memorable and we have to give our congratulations to Bayern Munich. We all know, however, that Manchester United should have won and were unfairly robbed (Please note that all views expressed in this previous sentence are those of Benjamin McCarthy only and should not be seen as reflecting the views of his co-authors or the blog as a whole. Manchester United were in actual fact eliminated fair and square.)
Our last night in Cusco was celebrated in (manly) style with pizza and 2 hours of poker - we were still feeling the need to regain our manhood after our massages. All this hard work was undone, however, when Ed and Ben booked themselves on a chocolate-making course. Nevertheless, these 2 hours of delight were definitely worth the sense of emasculation. We began with cacao beans, roasted them, peeled them, mashed them (we were declared the winners of the mashing competition, this time not by ourselves) and then turned them into godly chocolate. Our tour guide - who looked suspiciously like one of Willy Wonka's Oompa Loompas – completely fooled us when we made a typical Maya Hot Chocolate. She declared the secret ingredient to be human blood from the tongue. Ed had unwittingly volunteered himself and was about to have a glass shard stabbed through his tongue. Fortunately our tour guide decided honey was a preferable flavour to have in our drinks.
We finished by pouring our chocolate into moulds and adding flavours of our choice. The chocolate had been destined as presents for our families. Ed lasted a total of 2 minutes before deciding the chocolate looked too enticing and he had to gobble it all up himself. Tom was completely oblivious to the drama unfolding in the chocolate factory as he had remained at the hostel, glued to the Championship Play-Off Final, cheering on his beloved Crystal Palace at Wembley. After a nerve-shredding 120 minutes, his team clinched a return to the Premiership after 8 dire years in the 2nd tier of English football. He talked about little else for the next week.
Chocolate-making was our final activity in Cusco before we moved on to Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert of South West Peru. The Quechua language was heard less frequently the further away from Cusco (the former Inca capital) we travelled. Quechua is the one of the official languages in Peru (as well as in Bolivia and Ecuador) and is extremely bizarre, verging on the unpronounceable. In fact, George Lucas deemed the language so ‘alien’ that some of the Star Wars extra-terrestrials use it as their dialect! As if we hadn't done enough adrenaline-seeking this trip, our activity here was sand-boarding. We spent the afternoon honing our non-existent board skills before facing substantial sand dunes which surround the idyllic town of Huacachina. We had not quite mastered the art of turning on our boards, so straight down the slope we went. We picked up some pretty rapid speeds – although how much control we really had is still open to debate. There are no chair-lifts in the desert so instead we were given the treat of being driven up the sand dunes by a loud and ferocious dune buggy. It is not often that the trip uphill is more exhilarating than the ride back down!
Our last bus journey of the trip took us to our final destination; Lima. Boy have we spent a lot of time sitting on buses - over 150 hours, almost a whole week! We headed out for our last supper together and lived out our highlights, of which have there been so so many. We cannot quite believe what a fantastic and varied trip we have had. We may as well give up the pretence of calling it a trip, it has been more like a 10-week holiday! We have enjoyed the beautiful beaches of Rio, the power of the waterfalls in Iguazú and ventured all the way south to the one of the largest glaciers in the world. We have survived some crazy nights out in a Rio favela, Buenos Aires and Curitiba to name but a few. We have scrambled to the summit of an active volcano, battled through the driest desert in the world and driven along the spectacular Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats. We took on the altitude and made our way to the highest capital city in the world and tackled the infamous Death Road. Even illness could not stop us as we trekked up and down mountains and through the Amazon rainforest on the Inca Trail. Having seen the high-octane adventures which came before, you can probably guess how we chose to conclude our expedition. It was only fitting that as our last activity we should see The Hangover III – throughout our 2 months travelling together we have definitely formed our own Wolf Pack. We’ll let you decide which of us played the role of Alan.
Now, as we all say goodbye to South America we also say goodbye to the blog and to you, our faithful followers. We hope you have enjoyed reading about all our adventures.
We’ve had a blast.
We decided to soothe our wearied muscles by going for a massage. Around Cusco’s central square – the Plaza de Armas - there were plenty of attractive Peruvian women offering an hour-long massage for an extremely cheap price; this bargain simply could not be missed. We opted for a Full-Body Inca Massage after quickly and firmly declining the offer to have a his-and-his massage. How an Incan massage is different to every other massage out there is still beyond us. We enjoyed our hour of pampering nonetheless.
The utmost planning had gone in to our Inca Trail booking so that we would be able to watch the Champions League Final upon our return. Our original plan had been to watch the final in Paddy's Pub, the highest Irish Pub in the world at 3400m. However, due to circumstances out of our control we did not quite make it to the Pub in time for Kick-Off. Nonetheless, the Final was memorable and we have to give our congratulations to Bayern Munich. We all know, however, that Manchester United should have won and were unfairly robbed (Please note that all views expressed in this previous sentence are those of Benjamin McCarthy only and should not be seen as reflecting the views of his co-authors or the blog as a whole. Manchester United were in actual fact eliminated fair and square.)
Our last night in Cusco was celebrated in (manly) style with pizza and 2 hours of poker - we were still feeling the need to regain our manhood after our massages. All this hard work was undone, however, when Ed and Ben booked themselves on a chocolate-making course. Nevertheless, these 2 hours of delight were definitely worth the sense of emasculation. We began with cacao beans, roasted them, peeled them, mashed them (we were declared the winners of the mashing competition, this time not by ourselves) and then turned them into godly chocolate. Our tour guide - who looked suspiciously like one of Willy Wonka's Oompa Loompas – completely fooled us when we made a typical Maya Hot Chocolate. She declared the secret ingredient to be human blood from the tongue. Ed had unwittingly volunteered himself and was about to have a glass shard stabbed through his tongue. Fortunately our tour guide decided honey was a preferable flavour to have in our drinks.
Ed, the blood sacrifice
CHOCOLATE!!
We finished by pouring our chocolate into moulds and adding flavours of our choice. The chocolate had been destined as presents for our families. Ed lasted a total of 2 minutes before deciding the chocolate looked too enticing and he had to gobble it all up himself. Tom was completely oblivious to the drama unfolding in the chocolate factory as he had remained at the hostel, glued to the Championship Play-Off Final, cheering on his beloved Crystal Palace at Wembley. After a nerve-shredding 120 minutes, his team clinched a return to the Premiership after 8 dire years in the 2nd tier of English football. He talked about little else for the next week.
Chocolate-making was our final activity in Cusco before we moved on to Huacachina, an oasis in the middle of the desert of South West Peru. The Quechua language was heard less frequently the further away from Cusco (the former Inca capital) we travelled. Quechua is the one of the official languages in Peru (as well as in Bolivia and Ecuador) and is extremely bizarre, verging on the unpronounceable. In fact, George Lucas deemed the language so ‘alien’ that some of the Star Wars extra-terrestrials use it as their dialect! As if we hadn't done enough adrenaline-seeking this trip, our activity here was sand-boarding. We spent the afternoon honing our non-existent board skills before facing substantial sand dunes which surround the idyllic town of Huacachina. We had not quite mastered the art of turning on our boards, so straight down the slope we went. We picked up some pretty rapid speeds – although how much control we really had is still open to debate. There are no chair-lifts in the desert so instead we were given the treat of being driven up the sand dunes by a loud and ferocious dune buggy. It is not often that the trip uphill is more exhilarating than the ride back down!
Ed getting some air
Ben getting some air
View over Huacachina
We’ve had a blast.
Adiós xxx
