As entrances go, that of Chief Sekor of Olal village, North Ambrym, into our lives was pretty memorable – striding towards us through the rainforest, clad only in a namba (waist belt and banana leaf penis sheath – see photos) and grasping his chieftain’s stick. We very firmly were not in Kansas any more. Where the hell were we and how the hell did we get here?!

We didn’t really know what to expect from Vanuatu. It’s well known amongst Australians as a very-slightly-more-adventurous-than-Bali honeymoon destination, with enough 5 star waterfront resorts to shake a stick at. But equally one of our fellow travelers in PNG had spoken glowingly of the still active kastom culture prevalent in the outerlying islands, and this really hooked us – the Mt Hagen show had been so incredible that we knew we wanted to see more. So (obviously), we googled what to do with ourselves in our 2 weeks there, and came across an entry for the “Back to Our Roots” festival in Ambrym, one of the country’s more kastom-oriented islands – contact Chief Sekor of Olal village for further information. Which we duly did (for future reference, one contacts chiefs nowadays via mobile phone and the appropriate way to address them is, simply, as “Chief”), to be wooed with the promise of Chief-ordained boat transfer from the airport and a place to stay (in the Chief’s village no less. Actually in his guest bungalows, but I’d rather avoid the word bungalow. Chief Sekor was a pretty imposing chap whilst bungalow conjures a vision of an aging Surrey golfer clad in slacks). All sounded pretty interesting but we hemmed and hawed a bit – the internal flight schedule meant the festival would need to take a big chunk of our available time in Vanuatu and there’s not THAT much else to do on Ambrym. Hagen fuelled, however, we decided to go for it.

Chief Sekor’s entrance made us pretty confident we’d made the right decision, and that was BEFORE we saw the dancing. Or heard about the pig.

Yep, the pig. As we kicked back with a nightly cup of kava (see tasting notes) we were informed that the festivities of the next few days would include a pig killing. Well, ok, not unusual in these parts. And that the pig would meet its end by being ceremonially clubbed to death (as per tradition) – by one of our fellow tourists. Wow. This was a surprise – not least to Patrick, the Sydney based financial analyst to whom that honour fell (unlike us lucky but lazy layabouts, Patrick had spent the last 6 months in correspondence with Chief Sekor planning out his holiday, and the festival, in some detail and the two had built up quite a rapport). The pig killing in effect raised Patrick to the status of Chief Sekor’s tribal brother. We were all pretty excited – and to be honest more than a little apprehensive – about the next day’s events.

The festival itself was wonderful but rather hard to describe. You can see a little from the photos and the video – but this was about as far from the Hagen show as a South Pacific tribal kastom event can be. There were about 10 tourists, and maybe 100 or so locals, gathered in a traditional clearing, lined with tree fern carvings and dappled with shade. The setting, the hypnotic drumbeat, the singing, the pounding dancing, all combined into a magical and heartfelt experience. The dances were clearly an active part of tribal life – the kids here learn them when they’re tiny and all can perform the steps by heart without pause – which doesn’t sound that impressive, maybe, until you realise that some of these dances go on for nearly an hour. In fact, the primary dance (the Rom dance – in the photos it’s the one with the masked and cloaked creatures) is one of the key mechanics through which a man can “grade take”, ultimately allowing him to become a village or even area chief – the other main mechanic being the killing of large numbers of pigs, in particular pigs which have been hand reared for 10 or more years to develop tusks which grow in a complete circle. Yep, being a pig round these here parts carries some responsibility.

As for the pig killing? Patrick looked dignified and rather brave in his namba, falling into the rhythm of the event with grace. But yes, it’s pretty upsetting to see a ceremonial clubbing – the pig arrives hogtied and fully aware of its impending doom, and the clubbing is enough to inflict pain (pigs really do squeal) but not death, leaving a slightly sour taste in this pampered Westerner’s mouth.

I’ve rarely, if ever, felt further away from home … but that was an overwhelmingly positive feeling. Roll on, new experiences.

There is a heirarchy of loos. At the rarified end come Japanese Toto toilets, complete with recorded sounds of rushing water; heated electrically raising and lowering seats; directable, remote controlled water jets; and integrated hot air dryers. In the middle come western loos, bog-standard if you will. Then come the rustic French. After that the traditional Indian. Then come the full spectrum of long drops, followed by short drops. After that comes the native bush / hole you dig yourself. Bottom of them all is the wetsuit.

There are special cases, however, where we are prepared to make an exception to the grading system, and that is The Loo With a View. Our first, I think, was on a trip we made to Guatemala a few years ago. We made the exciting discovery that sitting on a bush toilet is considerably less unpleasant if you have sight of a (perhaps gently erupting) volcano. Since then, we have been on the lookout for new and exciting examples. There was one in the Everest Hotel in Nepal with a view of Everest and Lhotse. There are the men’s urinals at Felix’s bar in the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, with porphyry units set against a glass wall looking out over the Hong Kong skyline. Once you start looking, you spot them surprisingly often.

Today’s example comes from Ambrym. Perched among the trees on the edge of a cliff – a rather incongruous western-style porcelain throne with a hole smashed in the bottom giving access to the short drop below. No seat (naturally) but a bucket flush. Bring your own paper. So far so bad. However, more than making up for it all is a wonderful view out through the trees over the crashing surf to the ocean and the islands in the distance. Four stars.

[The loo, Vanuatu]

[The view, Vanuatu]

Our parting gift from Papua New Guinea, perhaps aptly, was an unexplained delayed flight and a resulting missed onward connection in the Solomon Islands.

Forced to stay in Honiara for a night we were determined to make the most of it: we had an excellent Japanese meal, a swim in the hotel pool, a good gym session and two very hot showers. We booked some air tickets, bought some snorkels and a local SIM card and updated the blog. We also rode up and down in the hotel funicular cable car and made two valiant attempts: one to find a famed local bakery / cappuccino bar (no bread, or coffee) and one to snorkel on a local wrecked freighter by booking a taxi and heading off in its general direction with our eyes peeled (no luck).

We were feeling a little twitchy. PNG had been amazing, but we (or perhaps more succinctly, I) had been ground down by the difficulties of getting around and we had, as a result, gone to less places than perhaps we should. Given that we are extremely unlikely to go back, this left us feeling perhaps a little guilty at the wasted opportunity. There is a long essay brewing somewhere about how to pace yourself on long trips, so we won’t go into that here. Let’s just say that we were keen to get on and do
things.

So we headed off to Zipolo Habu Resort on a small island in the Western Provinces keen for some action, only to find one of the more chilled out places in the world. Joe, the owner, constructed the place himself out of bush materials, slowly building it up over 30 years. There was beer in the fridge and fish in the sea – what more could anybody ask for? We had a great time, and we filled the time. I went scuba diving for a day: huge coral walls, sharks, two wrecked WW2 fighter planes. We went on a pretty amazing WW2 relic tour – snorkeling on a sunken Japanese freighter, lobster sandwiches on the pier for lunch, climbing on an American tank and half visiting an underground field hospital (let’s just say that you would have to be really, really sick to want to go inside). We went to a real life Skull Island! (yarrrr, me hearties!). We drank beer with a group of travelling yachties…

And yet, slightly spoiling the experience were the ants in our pants. You see, newly-made palm frond roofs sometimes still contain fire ants. And fire ants are tiny enough to fall through mosquito nets. And fire ant bites HURT LIKE HELL! And three nights in a row being bitten in the arse start to take the shine off anyone’s sense of humour. And the other guests – mostly Australian retirees – were very nice company and all that, but we were left with a mild yearning for adventure.

Little did we know how soon that would appear … next stop, Vanuatu!

The first rule of going out at night in Port Moresby is: don’t go out at night in Port Moresby. Although we joke and complain about being cooped up behind razor wire in hotels elsewhere the country, in Port Moresby (henceforth called PM) it is pretty necessary. Our taxi driver put it best: “I give my passengers rules. The first rule is, never get out of the car. Once an Irish lady got out of the car to take a photograph of the parliament building. She got robbed. At knife point. At ten in the morning. And I had to risk my life to save her – the robber was asking his friends for help in killing me, but they couldn’t be bothered. NEVER get out of the car. NEVER.”

This little speech was delivered on our way out to dinner on our last night in PNG. The fact that the robbers are quaintly called “raskols” in Pidgin doesn’t diminish the fact that this is a very dangerous city, known as one of the least liveable capitals in the world. We were stuck in a dingy, expensive hotel and wanted to stretch our wings a little. We had also had a restaurant recommendation from an excellent guide we had met in the Highlands (hi Nitin!) and wanted to try out “Dynasty” restaurant – it is meant to be one of the best places in town.

Let’s set the scene a little. One of the first hits you get when you google restaurants in PM is a blog post called Lower Your Expectations; Dynasty is a cookie cutter Chinese restaurant. In a shopping mall. While we are not natural mall rats, the advantage of a mall in PM is that you can (you guessed it) put a high fence round the outside and ring it with paramilitary-style security guards. This allows expats to wander round relatively safely with a particular mixture of homesickness and nostalgia – a wistful longing for home, as they knew it in the late 1980s.

Dynasty did us proud. No Alexis Carrington-style shoulder pads, but an actual, true-to-life half-decent Chinese restaurant. It was a little empty, seeing as we went at about 6pm so as to get home before the streets got too lively, but we had our dinner, had our beer, called a reputable cab to take us home, and nobody died.

[Lucy in busy, bustling, happening Port Moresby]

While we on the topic of shopping, it was while we were wondering round the mall with our ice creams looking in shop windows (Jesus, what has happened to us?) that we noticed the prices of everything. For example, an iPhone 4 was on sale in a shop for just over US1,250. Some questions: who in PNG can afford to buy them at this price? What heinous import duties are lining officials’ pockets to jack them up to that level? What must the locals think when every foreign student backpacker who passes through PNG has one in his pocket? The mind boggles.

Ahhh, Kumul Lodge. So right in many ways; so frustrating in so many others. It’s like PNG in miniature.

We headed there just after the Mt Hagen show – as you can imagine, we were still on a bit of a high after that. We’d plumped for Kumul as our destination as the alternative, Tari, sounded potentially a little far to travel and a little dangerous (rumours of an ongoing tribal war), and Kumul sounded nice – lots of birds of paradise, great hiking including to some local villages and a beautiful location not far from Mt Hagen. All of which was true.

Well, sort of. And there’s the rub.

There were birds of paradise – 8 species in fact. It’s just that only one species lives at the same altitude as the lodge, and for the others you need to take a tour to see them. Cost: $150 per person. There was hiking available – but only really along the road and a few short trails around the hotel; the other trails were never used, not really maintained and virtually un-passable (we tried: see “Mt Hagen Running Man”) and of course you needed to take a guide. The closest village was actually 10 kilometres and over 1,000 vertical metres away from the hotel – only walkable if the lodge provided a one way car transfer – and they didn’t have a car (we managed it by hitching a ride – with some other tourists one way and in a truck on the way back). Food was available – unless you were late or they forgot about you (both happened) – including a complimentary plate of fruit. Only it wasn’t complimentary, it was an additional $10 per mealtime.

Just enough minor annoyances to really take the shine off what should have been a great place – yes it was beautiful, yes the bungalow was lovely and rustic, and YES we saw birds of paradise. We both just ended up wildly frustrated by the place.

And yet, in some ways, we talk more about Kumul than we do about many of the more spectacular places we saw in PNG. We think that maybe in some ways, it provided a truer vision of the country than almost anywhere else we stayed.

A few vignettes:

The village down the road was abandoned and burned down. There had been a land dispute between villagers which escalated and ultimately culminated in some shootings. The entire village took sides, and war kicked off. Ultimately, the place became so dangerous that every single family abandoned both the village and their ancestral land (and only source of income) to stay with relatives. A man from Hagen was hired by one side to burn down the remaining houses – the other side found him and killed him. Negotiations were currently taking place as to appropriate reparations – in the form of live pigs to be transferred, and only once this had been agreed would any of the villagers be able to return home. This wasn’t considered at all unusual locally, other than the fact that the dispute was within just one village, rather than the usual two.

Our guide, Max, was a born naturalist with a burning ambition to start up his own eco-tourism business centred around an orchid garden. Only he couldn’t get any backing. Partially because under the PNG “wantok” system, he owed his loyalty to one of his relatives, the owner of Kumul Lodge – who preferred that Max spend his time guiding tourists and maintaining the grounds of the lodge. Partially because Max was wildly unrealistic – I’ve never met a man so bitter about the refusal of local people to work for him on the promise of future payment as and when the orchid garden took off. Partially because the whole idea is so flawed – who’s going to come to see a 40 foot square orchid garden, however nice, when it’s miles from anywhere and smack in the middle of Max’s sweet potato crop? But how do you work that out when you live in a country with minimal education and a staggering 75% unemployment?

We asked for the bill on our last day and were a little surprised when it took 20 minutes to produce. And then it was wrong. The reception lady simply couldn’t add. I’m not being unkind when I say that, rather it’s a simple statement of fact. Up until about 50 years ago, the PNG counting system consisted of 1, 2, 3, many. Given the relatively limited amount of cash trading, that system still works pretty well for much of the population and the basic numeracy skills that we take for granted are just not that widespread. Most adults over the age of 30 probably weren’t taught much (any?) maths and can’t do even basic sums without the aid of a calculator.

Our airport transfer, which we carefully arranged with the lodge manager the evening before. They forgot about it. We managed to make the plane, but only because they were able to speak to one of their wantoks down at the airport and get us ticketed (we arrived 10 minutes before the flight took off).

I could go on, but I won’t.

Suffice to say that Kumul, like PNG, got under our skin. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

So, we finally move on to the Mount Hagen Show. The show, or Sing Sing as it is called locally, was one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, for us coming to Papua New Guinea. It was certainly why we were in the country on this date (and it had been difficult to schedule our flights around it) so we had dangerously high expectations.

ALL of which were met. The Mount Hagen show is absolutely, jaw-droppingly amazing. Hopefully the 20 photographs below (culled after long discussion and at great emotional expense from an initial 330 photos) will do the place some justice.

You stand in the middle of a rugby pitch surrounded by several hundred performers, all dressed up to the nines in banana leaves, bird of paradise feathers, full body makeup, masks, drums and sticks. All of them are dancing and swaying and marching and singing their hearts out.  It goes on for two full days. It was only after a few hours of being overwhelmed by all this that we found out that half of the performers had actually stayed away. You see, their party had won the recent parliamentary elections, and they had stayed away for fear of violent reprisals from the losing side (welcome to PNG!).

The routine of the festival starts early in the morning, watching the performers arrive on the backs of buses and trucks and slowly metamorphosing from their usual street clothes into their performance costumes. Slowly the singing and dancing grows, before each group parades into the arena and joins an ever growing throng of pulsating, vibrant colour. At about 2pm the tourists and performers disperse – the tourists back to their enclosed hotels, the performers back into the surrounding shanty towns, from which loud chanting and singing can be heard late into the night. Despite Mount Hagen officially being a dry town (particularly around election season) the home brew industry must do a good trade at this time of year.

Alongside a relatively virulent strain of photographer tourist (see elsewhere) Mount Hagen also attracts a fascinating group of world travelers, amateur anthropologists and others attracted by interesting and difficult places. Our dinners in the evening were full of tales of tribal village stays in the 1960s, bushwhacking through WW2 trails in the deepest, darkest South Pacific and the occasional glancing reference to life on the ground during the Vietnam war. All pretty eye opening and awe-inspiring for a couple of humble office workers, I can tell you.

We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

We arrived at the little port of Pagwe, on the banks of the Sepik, after a bouncy 4 hour ride in a minibus, broken only by a short stop at a local market for us to buy some fresh produce.  At the time, we couldn’t quite work out why we were being encouraged with such enthusiasm to treat ourselves to a (delicious, by the way) young coconut, though this later became clear (see “Tuna’n’Noodles” post for further detail).  Waiting for us at the dock were our dugout canoe – all 20 foot of it, hand carved some 50 or more years ago from an exceptionally hard wood which grows locally – plus our crew for the next few days – George, Chris and our guide, Josh.  Deck chairs having been ceremonially placed in the canoe for us (the crew sat in the bottom of the canoe, but obviously us tourists are special) and our luggage and food supplies loaded, we were off!

The basic program for our trip was: day one – stop at some local villages on the main river to check out the spirit houses (more of which later); day two – head down to Blackwater Lakes, a stunning area upstream from the river and at comparatively high altitude where the style of the villages – lots of stilts – is particularly attractive, as is the mountainous background; day three – head to Chambry Lakes, another scenic area where the fish are so plentiful that as the lakes dry up in summer, it’s just not physically possible to catch them all and the area becomes quite smelly; day four – return to Pagwe to connect back to Wewak early the next morning.

So basically, 4 days spent mainly sitting in a remarkable old dugout canoe, watching river life gliding by.  Amazing scenery.  Hundreds of water birds (ibises, fish eagles).  Scores of local people out fishing in their dugouts, all of whom wave at you as you go past – we felt like the Queen.  Then we’d pull into some village somewhere and see what there was to see – generally, a spirit house or men’s house containing the traditional village cultural things (and some carvings to buy – yeah!), maybe a health care centre or a waterfall.  Return to the canoe and pootle on a bit before coming to a rest in a local village where we’d stay the night. At night, mainly just some relaxing time with the locals (though we did go crocodile hunting the first night – more exciting than it sounds, the largest we saw was about 18 inches!!).  Unbelievably relaxing, and yet the trip, and in particular the way of life of the local people, gave us a huge amount to think about – we were certainly never bored.

The comedy part of our trip came from the organizational front – or rather lack of it.

We got our first hint of this as we rocked up to the village guesthouse on day one – only to be chased out again thirty seconds later.  The guesthouse had been badly overbooked (all guests of Seby…oops), with 21 people fighting over about 12 rooms / bedding piles.  Fortunately, we were rescued by Sara, Seby’s sister in law, who carted us off to her house and put us up for the night with only the tiniest of avaricious glances at our food supply box to provide an inkling of an explanation as to this unlooked for generosity.  Part of the deal we struck was that any food we didn’t eat would go to her (as would some of the other more random supplies we carried – 2 bottles of curry powder, a couple of boxes of Ziploc bags … anyone would think the supplies had been provided specifically to address certain village requirements rather than to feed us for 3 days).  Actually, whilst it got a bit grating, her continual exclamations as to how lucky we were felt pretty accurate as we chatted around the fire for a couple of hours, listening to the sounds of  our fellow tourists haggling over the last sleeping mat.

Our next hint came via a delegation, led by our guide, Josh, wanting to know what we planned to do over the next few days.  The itinerary, so carefully planned with Seby, hadn’t been communicated to him so he had no clue as to what he should be doing.

This, as it turned out, was exacerbated rather by the fact that Josh had never guided before.  He told us this on day 2 – James asked how long he’d guided before, to which the merry response was “But I’m not a guide!!” (sub voce: what the hell made you think that??).  50 miles from the nearest cell phone signal, we gulped, smiled and accepted it.

The break though came later that day – a clear understanding between us and Josh (a) that we knew that he knew that we knew that Seby had totally failed to make any kind of plans whatsoever for us and that as a result, we and Josh were sort of relying on being helped out by random friends and family of Josh and (b) that we didn’t mind a bit – we were having a fantastic time, a complete adventure, and Josh was an unbelievably good guide – he is the main tradesman used by his village when they run out of sago and have to trade with other more sago-rich villages downstream, so he knows the river, and most of the people on it, backwards.  After which, we all rubbed along together just fine and Josh noticeably relaxed – to the extent that he was then perfectly happy the next day to act as our supplier for banana homebrew, despite the severe consequences of being found out in that activity by Sara, a committed Seventh Day Adventist (and also someone who was clearly keen that we spend most of our time sleeping and thereby consuming only a minimal amount of our food supply!).

We had a wonderful time on the river.  The mild chaos was oddly part of the charm – it never interfered with our pleasure and I think in most instances enhanced it.  Staying with Sara gave us a real perspective on modern life in the Sepik, that I don’t think we would otherwise have really understood.  And Josh, once he’d realized we weren’t going to explode on him, was an entertaining and informative guide to a part of the world he clearly loved.

Or maybe my hindsight is just coloured by realizing just how fortunate we really were – another group of Seby’s who we met in Wewak had spent 3 days eating peanut butter and crackers after Seby forgot to restock the boat with food.

Compared to which, our trip was LUXURY!

Easter Island.  The mere name is enough to make you tingle – the mystery of the ancient population that lived and died here, leaving only the enigmatic moai as their legacy.  It’s also a beast of a place to get to.  We had to go.

First impressions of this amazing place, it has to be said, weren’t great.  We flew there from Cusco just after the Inca Trail – one of those flights which is theoretically just fine (only one connection, in Lima), but in practice quite brutal – a 5pm flight from Cusco to Lima, then a seven hour layover in Lima airport before a 1am flight to Easter Island, landing at 6 in the morning.  Bear in mind that for the past few days we’d been going to bed same time between 7 and 8 at night – and the fact that the Lima airport lounge is lousy – and you’ll appreciate that we were a little on the tired and grumpy side when we landed.

Then hit Hurricane Dani.  Well, actually make that Damp Squall Dani.  The manager of the (otherwise lovely) guest house she was staying in, capable of turning the cheeriest soul despairing within a few short seconds.  “Welcome to the island.  You here for long?  Three days?  Oh.  There isn’t much to do here and it’s pretty wet right now…..” All this cheery chit chat whilst waiting for an hour for our fellow passengers just to enjoy the privilege of our 3 minute courtesy transfer to the guesthouse.  We got Dani’ed a few more times over the next few days – no, it was impossible to arrange a tour of the island (took us 10 minutes), no there were no good places to buy fresh produce (partially true, but we managed), etc, etc.  It actually affected our mood for the first half day we were there, until we realised what was happening, shrugged off our despondency and set off to explore!

And what better way to explore a mystical island full of ancient statues than by quad bike!  Sounds crazy, but actually all of the roads on one side of the island are dirt tracks and extremely difficult to navigate in a car, so a quad bike is actually a pretty solid way to get around.  Plus its FUN.  Other than when you get caught in one of the many heavy downpours that Easter Island suffers at this time of year – yep, we did, nope it didn’t bother us (that much), but that’s why we’re in full waterproofs in all the photos.

It rains a LOT there.   And the wind is also pretty crazy – think a visit to the blustery Scottish countryside in early spring and you’ve about got the measure of it. The unexpected advantage of which being the amazing rainbows we saw almost every day on the island, adding yet one more dimension of slight un-realism to the place.

First stop on the quad bike was Rono Kau crater, a crater lake covered in reeds whose crater rim also forms the edge of the island at that point.  Wildly scenic, it’s known as Witch’s Cauldron and looks just that way with the reeds simmering away on the giant circular surface. Then onto the Orongo Village, which is a partially restored old village, lived in by a tribe with a strong birdman culture.  It’s only once you’ve been on the island that the houses – hobbit like little places which don’t get much higher than about 2 foot – make sense.  Anything to escape the ever present wind.

Then finally the moment we’d been waiting for – our first glimpse of moai.  The first site we saw had a couple of broken down moai on the ground – very romantic and a great intro to the place (yes they really are that big!).  The next site, Ahu Akivi, was the money site – seven standing moai, all facing towards the sea (unusual – most of the moai faced inland as they faced towards the village they were erected to protect).  We got there just before sunset and enjoyed the place in near solitude for some time; it was magical.

The next day we went on a tour which took us to another couple of great sites – Ahu Tongariki, with 15 moai all near the coastline, and Rono Rakuru, the quarry were all the moai were created.  Rono Rakuru in particular was pretty flabbergasting – there are over 30 moai there, all still half buried in the earth (the theory is that the moai were built in advance of local big wigs’ deaths – but that the tribe then died out, or possibly ran out of trees to be able to roll the moai to their intended sites, before they could be erected).  It’s strangely like being in a tiki bar –  there’s so many moai and they’re all so well preserved that you half expect to tap one of them and find out its made of polystyrene. (They’re not.  I tried.  I hurt my fist).

Next day was a slow day to potter round Hanga Roa, see a few more moai and relax a bit.  We got up pretty early to go buy some fresh food for dinner (the island has markets, but they are pretty ad hoc, running from the time the boats land with fish to the time that everything has been sold).  Stepping outside the front door we were followed by a vaguely collie like dog.  Which, as it turned out, had adopted us for the day.  We walked to town; the dog followed.   We went into the market; the dog waited outside patiently.  Ditto at the supermarket.  The dog curled up on James’ feet whilst we enjoyed our daily indulgence of coffee and ice cream, then walked happily home with us.  It strangely made this one of our nicest relaxed days of the trip so far.

We’ve 2 theories for the dog’s delight in us: (1) James’ magnetic personality; or (2) the presence throughout the day of the enormous spiky local fish which we’d bought early in the day.  I hear the local name is dogfood fish.  It was very tasty.

Lucy and I have a slightly unconventional approach to altitude acclimatization. From prior experience, I tend to feel altitude reasonably strongly much above, oh, 4,000m and we were keen not to let the sheer height of the Inca trail cause us any problems. As such, we took our acclimatization pretty seriously. There are the usual tricks to this: spend a good amount of time at altitude before any trek (a few days hiking around Arequipa sorted this out), don’t overexert yourself at first (three days crammed in an overloaded jeep in Bolivia – big tick), trek high sleep low etc.. To this, we added our own personal flavour: spend at least one night drinking red wine in bed while watching bad television (Puno), eat lots of ice cream (San Pedro de Atacama) and – critically – make sure to have at least one blow out meal at the best restaurant in town. Which brings us to Cuzco.

Cuzco is many things. It is the historical capital of the Inca Empire, so it is the place where the Spanish conquistadors felt most obliged to ponder the grand apex of Inca civilization, culture and engineering and CRUSH IT. Think large, flashy cathedrals full of gaudy Spanish imagery (Jesus was Spanish-looking? With a silly pointy beard? I thought so too) built literally on top of the original, still-visible foundations of the Inca Temple of the Sun. It is the main base for treks to Macchu Picchu, so it is ram packed full of tour shops, equipment shops and sleeping bag rental places. Finally, it is a major spot on the gringo trail, so it is full of pizzerias, pasta shops and latte bars (including a stealth Starbucks next to the Cathedral). And if you actually do the Inca trail, this pile of sleazy little luxury looks a LOT more attractive on the way back than on the way in.

So we continued our acclimatization. We stayed in a nice little ex-children’s home hotel (“institutional chic” – nicer than it sounds). We spent a couple of days gentle hiking in the sacred valley, passing through amazing ancient Inca sites and little villages full of markets, tiny back streets and – in Pisac – a charming local festival which consisted entirely of overweight drunk men in fancy dress riding round and round the main square on increasingly tired looking horses to the sound of two competing brass bands (nicer than it sounds).

We also hit “Limo” which is a truly world class yet reasonably priced restaurant overlooking the main square. Our waiter Francisco – the cheesiest, most charming cheeseball since the dawn of cheesy charming cheese – had seemingly laid on a religious icon procession for our personal viewing in the square below our balcony window and crammed us full of ceviche, rare meat, raw eggs and all the other food-poisoning-courting things one isn’t meant to eat when on the road. It was fabulous.

One impromptu Pisco tasting later (six brands, the answer is “Viejo Tonel Italia” if you can get it) we rolled back to our hotel. Incidentally, you have to hand it to Lucy, who, in ten minutes, in Peru, can smoothly change outfits (and mental gears) between hiking boots / fleeces and short sparkly skirts / Christian Louboutin sandals AND is capable of handling steep, shiny cobbles at night in spike heels. What a girl.

Ahhhh, Macchu Picchu. The very name resonates of the mystery of an ancient, long disappeared warrior tribe and general South American strangeness. It’s one of the main attractions on the entire South American continent and definitely one of the top must dos on our trip. I’d been there before as a young’un, following the ancient Inca Trail for 3 days before finally, in the misty pre dawn, staggering up through the Sun Gate and witnessing the clouds breaking – apparently just for me – to see Macchu Picchu unveil itself briefly in the glowing dawn light. It’s a memory I treasure and one that I wanted in some way to share with James – so off we pootled from Cusco to follow the exact same trail as I’d navigated so many years before.

Of course, this time things were different. Last time I went, a guide was a suggestion rather than the now strictly regimented requirement, you could walk at will and camp wherever you liked. The trail was a little bit anarchic, wild and beautiful, but be-studded with the tiny pink jewels of other people’s toilet paper. The route is now strictly controlled, with a choice of 2 campsites available each night, typically with one placed about 2 hours before the next to allow some choice in walking distance. There are also only 500 people allowed to hike the trail each day – which eases crowding but in no way supplies the solitary experience you might think.

We had a lovely and small group to hike with – just four of us in total (an unexpected blessing of having booked really rather later than we should have done!) and fortunately all pretty well matched in terms of hiking speed. Our companions were Carlyne, a French civil engineer (James was in heaven talking tech-y bridge tunnel talk), Miriam, a German teacher and Brecht expert currently resident in Brazil, and our guide Roger, descended from the Incas (as he reminded us several times a day). Add to this seven porters and a cook (yep, I know, we were sounding pretty hardcore up to then weren’t we!!) and our little ensemble was ready to face the worst that the trail could throw at us!

The trail is actually rather wonderfully set up in terms of its route: `

• Day 1 starts with an ENORMOUS breakfast in Ollantaybambo. Calories obviously don’t count given the amount of walking you’ll be doing over the next few days but still I think James walked / waddled out of there a stone heavier. Then a few checkpoints (actually we were turned back at the checkpoint for some still rather unknown reason – the only thing we do know is that it was NOT Roger’s fault. Got sorted out eventually but not before we were all pretty fearful and rummaging in our pockets for bribes). The you set off after a nice little photo of the Inca trail sign, for a day of nice easy ambling along flat-ish surfaces, passing by the occasional village where you can buy such essentials as soft drinks and (I kid you not) ice cream….because obviously those seven porters aren’t carrying enough gear for you
• Day 2 is brutal – an early rise, fortifying maize porridge breakfast, then a vertical climb of about 800 metres over Dead Woman’s Pass (named for the shape of the mountain rather than the difficulty of the pass – or that’s what they say) followed by a descent, a further ascent of 500 metres to a second pass whose name no one can ever remember before finally descending, bone weary, to your campsite. Where you fall upon your dinner like a starving man. Or at least you do unless, like James, the day has so absolutely and whole heartedly broken you that you retire hurt to bed at about 6.45, having consumed only a few dozen little fried cheesy wontons (you get fed a lot on the trail – these were supposed to be a light pre dinner snack). I was rather delighted by this turn of events – in the whole of the seven years together, despite many attempts to break my James, I’ve always ultimately failed. Who knew it could be so easy?….Turns out all you need is a theoretical 11 hours hiking (we did it in 8 – smug smile) at altitude (max of about 4,200 metres). Now where can I find that kind of experience near London……
• Then just as you start feeling a bit fed up with this whole Inca Trail lark, comes day 3 – more climbing (and LOTS of Inca stairs – see photos) but relatively gentle and interspersed every couple of hours with amazing, isolated Inca sites looming out of the mist. These were some of our favourite Inca sites that we saw – the last one in particular, where we sat practically on our own in the middle of an ancient terraced site to watch the sunset, will stand out in our memory. Rocking up to your campsite there is a bit of facing off about whether or not anyone is going to go for a cold (glacially fed) shower before all eventually agreeing that smelling ain’t that bad. Pre dinner the cook provides you with a cake (of course) to congratulate the group on managing to stumble gasping up the trail that the porters (and cook) run up carrying 25 kilos of equipment for your comfort, on average 3 to 4 times a month. Hmmmm. Still, great cake (how do they do that on a propane stove???)

Day 4 is the Big Day, where you get up early and hike for an hour or so up to the Sun Gate (from where you get your first view of Macchu Picchu), then another hour takes you to Macchu Picchu itself. The way it used to work is that you got up an hour before dawn, legged it (I vividly remember running, gasping with pain) up to the Sun Gate then watched dawn from there (and recovered!!) before ambling down to Macchu Picchu to get there an hour or two before the day trippers arrived. Now it’s all gone a bit bonkers. You get up at 3.30 to stand in a queue for an hour and a half, then you’re allowed to set off. Everyone pegs it along at great haste to the Sun Gate, but the time at which you are allowed to set off is too late to see the dawn anyway and also too late to allow you to arrive in Macchu Picchu before the day trippers. Which unfortunately left a little of a sour note about Macchu Picchu; majestic as it is, arriving at the site after 3 days in the comparative wilderness, it felt almost obscenely crowded. Still, our guide gave us a great tour – modern theory suggests Macchu Picchu may have been a university / retreat for the wise men of the Incas which was deserted when the Spanish came and the residents were forced to re-join their community in Ollantaybambo. This feels right to me – Macchu Picchu as Hogwarts if you will. Which is pretty fitting given the magic that the place still possesses….even with the crowds.