Day 24: The calm before the storm

Today could easily be seen as a boring day. Apologies to all of the one person who reads this (still not sure who you are). Yet in other ways today could be seen as a great triumph and that is the way I will take it. Today was spent almost entirely in tourist agency offices wheeling and dealing. Arguably our biggest dilemma of the entire trip was of where to explore the depths of the jungle. Our options were; Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. Obviously we now haven't gone in Ecuador, but we almost had a split moment of panic in Cuenca. It was $200 for 4 nights in the jungle. Of course there was a catch though! It was miles away! We would have had to have retract our steps and gone allll the way back to Quito (10 hour bus minimum) then travelled east into the jungle. Then, as if that is not enough, we would have then had to make our way back to Cuenca. Now this could have potentially been ok if this had been included in the trip, even if it was more money! Too much error to go wrong. Bolivia was our original decision as we had heard it was the cheapest. Upon speaking to quite a few travellers on the way and consulting the indispensable tool that is lonely planet guides, we realised that this didn't necessarily mean it was the best choice for us. It was an out and back trip. Straight from La Paz along horrendous roads for 18 hours each way just for the jungle trip... So we have searched for an alternative. The jungle in Peru clings to the east side of Peru. So far we have spent all of our time on the west side (the coast) with the exception of Huaraz and Arequipa; neither of which are near to the jungle. However, Cuzco is and thus part of our day was spent finding out the different packages offered. Which part of the jungle you would go into, what you can sort of expect to see and thus the cost. In an ideal world I would have loved to have splashed out like Manchester United and signed myself up for a trip of over a week for well over $1000. Unfortunately I cannot do this. BUT mission accomplished: we found an affordable trip that did decent things in a decent amount of time. One thing booked... Naturally what would come to your mind if some said Peru, not even specifically Cuzco? I'd fully imagine Macchu Pichu to be in your top 3 suggestions. It is closest to Cuzco! Once again, many different tours were offered. To pre-book in England was over £400! They also tried to claim it would sell out for months in advance - yeah right. On our first trip in Ecuador the German girls told us of an alternative to the two most popular ways to visit Macchu Pichu! Firstly is the 4 day walking, nay trekking something in the region of 50km, for some reason this is popular AND expensive. The second is the day trip, you get a very expensive train and don't spend much time there so it is overall very expensive. For the sly people out there, there is another option: the Inca jungle tour. This includes a bit of walking (minimising this is of course great), mountain biking, water rafting, hot springs and zip lining. What is not to love? You also get a guided tour of Macchu Pichu as per normal also. This trip was much more affordable. Our other trip I will keep undisclosed for now but it's only a day trip. The main reason for not revealing the name is because I feel it would then ruin the surprise of it. You'll see in a few days. Blogging won't be able to occur on a daily manner in the jungle but that is not for a few more days. In that time I will write it on paper then type up later. I should be good to do it during the Macchu Pichu extravaganza festival of enjoyment! In other news we did laundry (shock). The windows in our room would make Dave Nield shudder in his boots. The glass somehow is held together with nails? For dinner we tried the classical South American dish of guinea pig! It's really weird! They serve it and you can tell that it is what it is because of the shape. That's quite an odd thought because normally you never do quite realise what animal you are eating so explicitly. It did actually taste very nice. A rich flavour similar to duck but without the fatty aspect of duck. As much as Emma and I wish it was a food blog, it's not and it's very difficult to describe food. So for this I'm gifting Emma a paragraph:

"Guinea pig was probably the strangest thing I've ever eaten in my life (after some of James' cooking). The taste was satisfying as it had similarities to that of duck and chicken, however it was an impossible mission to scrape this meat off the bone - thus we probably only managed to eat half of the amount a normal Peruvian would manage. I would give guinea pig a solid 7 out of 10 but wouldn't be in a hurry to attempt to pluck the miniscule shreds of meat off the bone again."