Apparently Cusco and Arequipa have an age old rivalry going. But the later being the second biggest city in Peru and far less touristy, I´d have to say Arequipa is way better. It feels more like a European, sophisticated vibe and you say ´No Gracias´a lot less to street hawkers.

If you´re wondering what there is to do aside from all the great restaurants and bars, you can even see a frozen mummy. That´s right, about 5 years ago this explorer bloke  found an Inca teenager who was sacrificed to the gods by the Incas. The mummy, named Juanita, is about 400 odd years ago.

Because the sacrifice site was at such high altitude (six kilometres above sea level, and two kays higher than Maccu Pichu), she has been preserved near perfectly, hair, skin, shoes clothing and all! Anyway, if you´re lucky enough, she will be on display in the museum, at minus 20 degrees celcius in a bespoke glass case. An awesome site. Goriness aside, it´s also a really big insight into the Inca culture and why the hell the slaughtered perfectly innocent girls. And why not.

But before you start thinking I travel just to see old mummies (there was the mummies of Vodnyan in Croatia as well), I´m checking out the Colca Canyon tomorrow, which is meant to be way bigger than the Grand Canyon in the US. Stay tuned.

To be precise, here´s a trip iterary for the trek that I did. 

Photos and stuff will come later, but first here´s a day by day account for anyone who´s thinking of giving it a go.

If you have any questions about Machu Picchu or SAS, please feel free to make a comment using the links below and i´ll try and answer it for you.

Day 0 - meet at SAS offices in downtown Cusco for a briefing. They go over the route, what to expect, what you need and arrange porters, sleeping bags etc. Also the first chance to meet your guides and your fellow tourist hikers and get acquianted.

Day 1 - Meet up at Cusco at 6am and start a really long drive to the first check point. Most of it down one lane dusty roads where trucks have to back up to let you through! The starting point is called Kilometro 82. Here the porters grab your stuff, you pack up and hit the trail.

The first day is about 14 kilometres of hiking. The first few hours is very tranquil and easy going. Sort of like something out of a kung fu show like Monkey Magic.

You see the river, the train, llamas, alpacas (literally being led by local farmers) mules and donkeys, everything! The second half is a bit more uphill and really starts to get to you. It´s a baptism of fire if you will. Because I was knackered at the end of it!

SAS Travel use a different campsite to other agencies and it´s absolutely breath taking. Believe me the view is totally worth the struggle. If you´re a quick hiker you will get there in time to see the sun set and have a nice hot cup of Milo.

Day 2 - Wake up to that perfect view, knowing it´s a fleeing thing. Because today you´re hiking 16 kilometres (10 miles) - most of it uphill.

The good news is day 2 is the worst of it. And if you can survive that, you can survive anything. By about lunch time, you will hit Dead Woman´s Pass, a pretty steep hike by anyones´standards. It´s pretty steep and chilly up there (the altitude is 4198 metres). So you have to stop and catch your breath. After that, a massive set of down hill steps, which is just unbelievable to see. It´s kind of like a Great Wall of China type deal, undulating everywhere and taking in some great scenery. Also some great Inca sites.

Day 3 - wake up knowing full well that the hardest part of the hike is over and you´re only hiking for half a day! So you wake up late (6.30 am!) and take a comparitively leisurely stroll. One highlight is an absolutely brilliant Inca site with a waterfall behind it you hit at lunch time.

But the real highlight is taking a dip in the freezing cold water fall (while the girls queue for hours for a hot shower) then going to the bar for a well earnt cold beer - the first of the trip. Then kick back and take it all in.

One minor criticism of the trip is that despite the bar and restaurant, this camp site is a bit crap. But it´s the only one where you can stay before hitting Machu Picchu the next day.

Day 4 - Wake up at 4.30 am to be the first in line for Machu Picchu (this part of the trail opens at 5). You start hiking in the dark for about 20-30 mins, before the sun comes up and you realise you´re walking along the edge of a cliff! It´s pretty easy hiking except for about 50 steps which are virtually horizontal. Having survived Dead Woman´s Pass on day 2, this is a mere speed hump! 

There´s two Inca sites on the way. One being the sun temple you will see in the 2 odd hours it takes to hike to the Maccu Piccu site. By about 8.30 ish, you´re there!

While it´s a real accomplishment to walk up and see Maccu Piccu before you, it´s a bit of an anti-climax when you start seeing the retirees rock up all clean in their luxury buses all fresh and rosey! But nothing can take the wind out of your sails after that. Then you check in and begin the formal tour of the Machu Picchu ruins.

General feedback on SAS

These guys have great guides and take great pride in their crew and the welfare of their porters (you will have about 2 guides and 20 porters on your trip). Groups are fairly small too. I think there was 18 in our group.

They don´t force you along at any great pace and have plenty of knowledge on all the sites, and yes they speak great English. But most importantly, the food is absolutely awesome! Everyone´s dietary requirements (except obviously religious ones e.g. Kosher, Halaal etc as their ain´t no Rabbi´s or Clerics in Peru!) are catered to no worries at all. Oh yeah and no one goes to sleep hungry!

Also the gear is excellent. They can provide sleeping bags and mats at cost and no one was ever cold or wet! As soon as you arrive at your camp site, tents and common areas are all set up and ready to go. So you don´t have to spend time after a hard day´s hiking putting up a tent.

In short, I can´t recommend them highly enough! Not the cheapest but definitely amongst the best.

General Advice

Don´t bother bringing your own mats and sleeping bag. Because the SAS ones are about $9 USD or something to rent and are awesome. Really thick and comfy.

If like me you´re not a full on hiker, don´t buy a whole bunch of expensive stuff at home. You can either buy it really cheaply in Cusco or even rent it. For example, thermal tights (essential at night) were 30 Soles in Cusco (about $10 AUD) and about $75 for wool ones at home. Same with torches and hiking sticks.

Speaking of hiking sticks, these are an absolute essential, especially for day 2 to save yourself a whole lot of knee pain on the down hill sections. You can buy a walking pole for 10 Soles at the first stop on day one.

Oh and most importantly climatise, climatise, climatise. Give yourself at least 3 days in the high altitude of Cusco before starting the trek, or the altitude will kill you!

Try and get a bit fit before you go too. I did one hour´s personal training a week for 10 weeks and it helped a fair bit.

Above all don´t be scared of it. My partner and I aren´t super fit, and there were plenty of people with no real interest in hiking at all that did it fairly well. It´s hard, but it´s not that hard. What it is though is one of the most rewarding things you can do. And regardless of what tour group you choose, it´s incredibly worth the pain and effort!

Firstly altitiude is a bitch. Many people fly into Cusco from other high altitude spots like La Paz in Bolivia and so they´re already well adjusted. But if you´re doing Peru only, then take care on your first few days. My advice is (if you´re coming from overseas), check into your hotel, get a really plain meal for dinner (no rich restaurant food), drink plenty of water and go straight to bed. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. You will feel like death warmed up. So don´t waste your money on a great meal you can´t eat like I did!

Secondly, Cusco is a bona fide tourist town. It´s a cliche used widely in the west, but until you´ve experienced it here, you have no idea. Some pubs even sell a T shirt with ´No Gracias´ on it to fend off the local vendors. It´s also a bit sleazy at night with people offering you free drinks and stuff. Leading me onto my next point.

Regarding alcohol, take it easy champ. There´s plenty of bars but with less oxygen in your lungs, you´re gonna get drunk a lot quicker and end up like a fourteen year old mess. And you will be dehydrated as hell and up all night pissing. No fun. So at least for the first couple of days, maybe lay off the piss! 

Oh yeah, and the coca. It´s everywhere. Drink plenty of coca tea, or even better buy the coca flour which will sort your right out. But you ain´t gonna get stoned off it champ. You can chew coca leaves to your hearts content and you won´t be like Tony Montana on Scarface. It fixes your digestion and altitude sickness though.

Finally, trouble. Especially in the main plaza in Cusco, there are cops everywhere. They are really making a concerted effort to stop violence against tourists. But a poor bloke got mugged the second night we were here, just outside our window. An Aussie guy that has a restaurant here told me it was absolutely remarkable - because the tourist police here crack down HARD on anyone that mugs a tourist. While I believe him, there are no street lights here and there´s plenty of steep dark alleys. So if you´re not absolutely knackered at night from sightseeing, either stay right in town or have early nights.

Anyway, that´s the load off my mind. Next comes the happy stuff, of which there´s plenty!

Thankfully the restaurants were open and I had one of the best steaks ever. It was grilled and salt rubbed or something but dang it was good. Probably as good as anything Argentina has to offer. With all the trimmings, it would´ve cost close to $40 Aussie. I´m told Argentina is M U C H cheaper. She who must be obeyed says Chile is a bit expensive but I was only there for two days!

Sadly not much else to do but get pissed - which I did - whilst finding out the hard way that every drink is a double in Chile, and well most of South America. So remember, go easy tiger! Four drinks is enough to get shit faced here! Oh yeah and you get a litre of beer per cup (you can get smaller but that´s what most people drink) and a jug is something like 2.7 litres! But there´s some gret night life if you´re not legless by sun down!
I was staying at the La Chimba hostel, which is in a really bohemian, multi-cultural part of town, a fair whack out of Santiago proper. It was like a Chapel St kind of vibe and really went off on a Saturday night. In the morning the zoo is close by and you can catch a chair lift over it, right to the top of this mountain, which has a huge monument of Virgin Mary or someone, kind of like the Jesus one in Brazil. Just don´t get there too early, because nothing will be open before 9am (blame it on the jet lag)

Sadly this won’t be the case from hereon in. In preparation for the Olympics, China is becoming so procifient in dealing with dissent that they’re simply killing dissentors in record numbers and in record time. No trial, just incarceration. If you’re thought to be a threat, apparently you could be dead in a jail cell within hours.

Weapon of choice, well an electric batton of course! Just get 7 or 8 cops in a cell and beat the shit out of the prisoner (no phone book required). After all they’re just doing their job. Oh just don’t damage the internal organs, because they harvest and transplant human organs to party faithful, and one can only guess the very, very rich.

This die in custody bit is a bit unusual. Usually the prisoner at least used to get the firing squad, or death by lethal injection. The later is typically done in specially designed trucks, so they can quickly operate on the victim in remote provinces and recover the organs on site.

So rest assured, some Communist Government cadre or rich Hong Kong guy is going to get a healthy new set of lungs for someone else’s free will. Geez I hope someone pisses on the Olympic flame. This is just not cricket! My condolences to the victims of these most recent and heinous human rights violations - even by Chinese government standards.

But remember kids, it’s important to hate the government, not the people. So if ever you needed an excuse not to watch the Olympics, I hope this helps.

Inside the decor is as arty and minimal as the name suggests. Choose something to eat from the blackboard and park yourself on a bench or table and watch a weekend breakfast slowly morph into a lunchtime beer! Food wise, it’s quick and simple. No big kitchens or even rendered walls to flaw you. Their baked beans are home made and nothing short on sensational. They have a bunch of open toasted sandwiches too. I’ve tried the salmon and dill toasty thing and it was sublime. Coffee is half decent too.

Not completely sure but I don’t think they make fresh juice and they don’t have any wireless internet, which is handy when you get bored of your skull working at home. Minor quibbles in an otherwise awesome place. So if you get bored of Orange and other places, check it out.

And it looks like it’s gonna actually be called ‘I’m proud of my gay son’. So all in all, it looks like 2 or 3 months before this bad boy is in the stores - optimistically. This is gonna mean some rough sleeping patterns. In the words of old Big Kev, I’m excited!

In the mean time, support You Am I on the Facebook. Giddy up and become a fan and join the YAI group.

Oh and lo and behold, I just found this. One of the most insightful and interesting short vids I’ve seen of the great man in quite some time, discussing the origin of the Luxury of Hysteria.

For those of you that think Japan never made a classic car, look away, smile and think of England. For the freaky small minority of us who love pristine J-tin, brace yourself, the Grand JDM blog is pure car porn.

Last night I found this site looking for info on Toyota Centurys and they had not one but two articles on them. One car was in Australia and for sale! Anyway I haven’t been able to stop looking since. For those of you that don’t know (and for the trendies, frankly I hope you don’t), they’re not made for the status quo. They’re made to look timeless and classic in a similar demeanor to a Rolls Royce. But we don’t like them for that, we love they way they look pimped out on old school rims in that uber classy black paint with silver trim.

It only gets better from there. They have Project Hakosuka (kind of means box-car in Japanese slang), an early seventies Skyline GTR. Worth a read if only to get some advice on the turmoils of importing a vintage car from Japan. It’s insightful to see first hand exactly what those auction grades mean and what culturally passes as a pristine resto in Asia.

Finally (and by no means have I read the whole site …yet) they have links to some of the most awesome vintage car dealers in Japan. Oh yeah and the site is done using the Wordpress blog. This site is pure heaven on a stick. Big shout outs to its creator. It’s like the internet’s all new again!

The fight was slated when an angry fan contested Yang Sihamoni, President of the CMFL, claiming that one lion could defeat his entire league of 42 fighters.

Those little fellers didn’t do so well:

Sihamoni was quoted before the fight stating that he felt since his fighters out-numbered the lion 42 to 1, that they “… could out-wit and out-muscle [it].”

Unfortunately, he was wrong.

Don’t believe me, well it’s from the BBC! Something tells me the won’t be a video on Youtube and I’m not game enough to look at work.

Clearly the problem with having two computers is that you constantly have to transfer stuff from one to the other. Or if you’re like me, you have one pristine new computer that has the bare essentials, and one old workhorse knee deep in elbow grease. What this remote desktop utility is use your sexy computer to manipulate the workhorse. And that’s what you want!

It’s a relatively simple exercise to install. Just download the five meg zip file onto your Mac and off you go. On the other end, you need to enable remote connections in the Windows control panel. So yes it is a bit fiddly, and to be frank the help files could have been a lot better. But once it’s up and runnin’, oh joy of joys. You can run your Windows machine’s desktop on your Mac just like you were there. Over a wireless LAN, it’s not too jerky either. So why not give it a crack?

Importantly, it’s optimised to interact with Vista based Windows machines (call it optimism) but it will work with XP. Be warned though that the help files are based on Vista.

Before you shirk at Microsoft products, there is a bunch of other remote desktop solutions for Mac. All are infinitely more confusing - and expensive - than this one. Microsoft Remote Desktop seems to do the job pretty nicely, and that’s all I really care about.

Download Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection for Mac Beta 2 (look for Remote Desktop at the bottom of the poorly designed page!)