02/08/2019 - Day 5 Choquequirao trek, Peru

We got up at 04:30, an early rise so as to avoid walking in the hottest part of the day. We had a hot chocolate and omelette and bread for breakfast, and set off in the dark at 05:30 to start the final leg of our trek. As usual we said goodbye to Thomas the chef who was washing up, and our porter Diamon who would take our tent down for us, these luxuries definitely make the whole experience more enjoyable! We got to the end point within 2.5 hours, being overtaken by Thomas about half an hour before we finished. He was so fast he was basically running up the mountain, apparently he was trying to beat all the other chefs to get a good spot to cook us some lunch! We managed to beat Diamon and the donkeys (just!) for the first time, which we were pleased with (granted they started a good hour after us but still!) It was mixed emotions finishing the trek, a bit sad that it was all over, but also a sense of achievement for completing it (plus definitely ready for a proper shower!) We had some group photos at the top of the mountain, Josh looked like a giant in the photos compared to the rest of us!

WE MADE IT!

The team

Tired feet

Morning Views

Thomas made us a spaghetti lunch (lunch at 09:30!) Our stuff was taken off the donkeys and they started making their own way along the dirt track towards their home. Our car arrived so we all got in, ready to start the 4-hour windy journey back to Cusco. When we caught up with the donkeys in the car Diamon hopped out to shepherd them back home and we said our goodbyes to him. The rest of us continued on to Cusco. At one point the driver pulled up onto the curb, and he, Thomas and our guide Alex bough a pint of Chicha each (a fermented Quechua beer, tastes a bit like cider) which they basically downed in 3 seconds. Alex couldn’t manage all of his and so gave the rest to Thomas, and then they all joked around that Thomas was drunk (I get the feeling he could sit and drink pints of the stuff on a day off work!). We were less worried about that and more concerned that our driver had just necked a pint, but there wasn’t much we could do or say, this is normal for here! Josh had already pretended to be a bit travel sick just to try and make the driver take it a bit easy! We continued on into Cusco and got dropped off at the end of our road. We got into our hostel (same one as before, Chusay rooftop hostel) and hopped straight in the hot shower and then into bed for the rest of the afternoon. We ordered a takeaway pizza (Papa Johns, it’s like home from home) and dropped a huge load of laundry into the laundrette. We binged on the Wifi, 5 days of social media to catch up on!

The trek really was one of the highlights of our whole trip!