Choquequirao

Or "Cradle of Gold" as the translation goes. This apparently is unlikely to be its original name but is one given to it locally and used for time immemorial. Once it gets on a map that's it.

What is she blethering on about I hear you asking yourselves. Ah yes, I've just come back from a 5 day trek to an Inca site called Choquequirao. Like Machu Picchu it is built on a ridge with spectacular views on both sides of the site. It has fewer uncovered high status buildings but is likely to have been a royal site (archaelogists have different theories) and may have been a country estate. It has vast quantities of unbeliveably steep terraces, more of which are still being uncovered and it will be some years before the entire extent of the site is known/revealed to the eye.

The other major difference to Machu Picchu is that the only way in and out is on foot or if you're feeling terribly lazy on horse/mule back (although even then you have to walk some of it because it is very steep and rocky). This means that the site is quiet, when we were there, on average we could see about 10 other people on the whole site versus the several hundred a day at Machu Picchu.

The trek itself is part of the whole experience, we walked a loop, 2 days to get to the site, a day at the ruins and 2 days to walk out. It's tough and there's lots of straight up and down and very narrow paths with extremely sheer drops, but it's an incredibly rewarding trek. The Apurimac valley is spectacular with jagged, snow capped mountains fringing it and a great green river thundering through it. The valleys that open off it are a little gentler with farms dotted about and a subsistence way of farming that was last used in England before the second world war. Horses, mules and feet are the methods of transport through the valleys. Oxen are used to plough, or on very steep slopes, manul ploughing. The local people speak Quechua first and Spanish second (or not at all). People are polite, welcoming and shy. When trek passes trek, every member says "Buenas Dias" to every member of the other trek, so a little chain of acknowledgement ripples through the lines.

I wondered a week or so ago if after this trip I would want to come back to Peru, would I have "done it all". After this trek I know I will come back, there are so many amazing places in the Andes and by walking you see them slowly and you get a little taste of a way of life and a strong culture that is different to ours.