I can´t dance with you, you vote for National

And with those words, Ben makes himself very popular with other Kiwis.

But I´m getting ahead of myself. It´s been a long week. There was some walking, some drinking, vast amounts of legal drugs, some grumpiness, not enough sleep and some possibly not so good international relations.

So, once I´d recovered from the vomitting that follows a night of boozing, we had a quiet night and then prepared to spend the next day getting ready for the Inca Trail. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of ordering something with mushrooms in it for breakfast. I´m not allergic to mushrooms, merely intolerant. Extremely intolerant. Which is a pity, because I rather like them. Anyway, spent quite a lot of my day in the bathroom, admiring the decor and reminding myself to buy more toilet paper at the first opportunity. In the end, at about 8pm, I made Kruse go out and get me some stuff to make my bottom behave. Would have gone myself but feared an incident of horrific proportions.

Spent most of night floating back and forth from the bathroom to the bedroom. At about midnight I realised that I might also have a bladder infection. FUN! Too late to go to the chemist so instead I drink two litres of water and debate with myself and the bathroom wall as to the wisdom of getting up at 4.50am to do the Inca Trail, where I don´t think they have any chemists. Will Kruse be cross with me and the US$400 I will be throwing away if I do not go?

Manage about two hours sleep and decide that I really ought to go and to hell with the havoc the sad bottom etc. might play with my dignity on the trail. Things look up, however, as once we are picked up at 5.20am and travel for two hours with all the other people on our tour, we get to a village with a pharmacy. Much rejoycing, and as Kruse and Ben mark the start of the trail with shandies for breakfast, I march into the pharmacy, clutch my nether regions and announce ´have infection´. They give me drugs. More drugs, on top of the ones I have for my bottom. No shandies for breakfast for Penelope.

It is at breakfast that Ben notices the startling resemblance the three young English folk on our tour have to Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Why would three young magicians do the Inca Trail? Harry doesn´t have his scar but as we have a black vivid felt pen with us, we think we can remedy the situation.

So, anyway, we, like, totally, do some walking for four days. It is all good and very much worth the vast sums of cash we paid. Am all for three course meals on a tramp. Very good tour company. Inca Trail is only 43 kms. PIFFLE. Could do it in my sleep. Of course, huff and puff my way for most of the uphill (second day walk for uphill for 12 kms, and go up to 4200 metres above sea level, almost 1100 metres in a few hours) and dance like a gazelle for the downhill. A gazelle with fecked knees, but a gazelle, nontheless. Kruse impressed the many people on the trail by doing the last two hours holding a six-pack he´d bought off the ladies who dot the Inca Trail with little stalls selling liquid.

Would I recommend it? Yes. It was all fancy and with ruins and porters only wearing sandals whilst carrying 25 kgs, and westerners like myself wearing tramping boots, outfitted entirely in Kathmandu and labouring under a pathetic six kilos. The porters would wake us with a cup of tea at 5am each morning. Ben got to share a tent with Harry Potter. Machu Picchu was pretty darn fancy, although quickly full of tourists. Kruse was told off for flying the NZ flag. Is tapu. Felt superior to all the lazy folk who had just turned up on a bus for the day. They have no idea.

We make friends with the Irish. Do not make friends with the Americans. Well, I sort of did. Kruse and Ben definitely did not endear themselves to two ladies. The Germans were quite fantastically German. The English were English. The French Canadians had good accents. I don´t think anyone will be forgetting the alcoholic Kiwis anytime soon. Kruse and Ben get the guide well and truly drunk at lunch on the last day as we wait for the train to get back to Cusco.

So, now back in Cusco wondering how the hell we can get out of this town, as it keeps sucking all our money. Checked bank balance and it is very sad, indeed. So many gringos here, which is hardly surprising, really, given that it´s the biggest tourist attraction in Peru. (Kruse adds ´if not South America´). Have gone to Irish bar and English bar, to watch rugby, and one may as well be anywhere but South America. Have high hopes for leaving for Bolivia tomorrow. However, there´s a good chance we´ll still be here tomorrow night. If only we still had Harry Potter, we could borrow his broomstick and fly away.

Am fairly positive that I had a great deal more to say about the Inca Trail but cannot remember any of it. All can really say, is that it really is rather fancy, hard on the knees and that I´d do it again but with a plastic poncho as well as a rain coat so that if it rained again, I could cover my sleeping mat. A wet sleeping mat is not so much fun. ´Spose I could have asked Harry Potter to magically dry it but think he is not supposed to use magic outside of school.

Irish man was really Ben Allan in disguise. Uncanny resemblance.