An Explosive New Year in Cusco!

The last day of 2014 started with huge thunderstorms, lightening and torrential rain. It wasn't looking good for our planned outdoor New Year's Eve celebration!

However, we braved the weather and walked into town via the laundrette and found a lovely organic restaurant called "Greens" to eat lunch in.

After the disappointment of Bolivian food, we were delighted when we were served delicious meals!

Lauren had spicy chorizo spaghetti and I tucked into Alpaca medallions on a bed of creamy mash.

Eating Alpaca was a first for me. It tasted very similar to Lamb.

We then donned our rain jackets once again and went in search of a couple of travel agents who could book us our long awaited Machu Pichu trip, Sacred Valley and also a 3 day trek into the Amazon Jungle!

Mission complete we walked back through the beautiful cobbled streets of Cusco to our hotel to freshen up for our New Year celebration!

We quickly called a few friends & family just before midnight GMT to wish them a happy new year. Whilst we're having a great adventure, it's times like these that we really miss our close friends & family.

Big shout out to Merrick & Lucy who we've spent the last 6 New Years with! We missed you guys!

We had a quick catch up with Gareth & Andi in the middle of their New Year party. 

Lauren having a quick cup of wine before we went out (there were no glasses in our room!)

First, we'd agreed to meet Dave, Lewis, Dylan and Eliot at one of their hostels the other side of town for some cheap, happy hour drinks.

After an hour we braved the pouring rain and walked through the busy streets to Cusco's "Wild Rover" hostel.

As we'd all met at Wild Rover hostel in La Paz on Christmas Day, it seemed fitting that we join the party at their Cusco hostel for New Year. It was also Dave's 29th birthday so we were doubly celebrating!

Left to right: Lewis (pronounced Louie), me, Dave, Lauren and Dylan (Eliot escaped this pic somehow!)

Eliot found a weird costume to wear...

The hostel certainly lived up to its name as the party was WILD! The music was (too) loud, the beer was flowing and it took 20 minutes to get served at the bar each time which probably was a good thing as it helped us pace ourselves!

Eliot joins the selfie at last!

Around 10:45pm we walked down to the main square in Cusco, Plaza de Armas, which is renowned for crazy new year celebrations.

All through the day, street traders had been selling fireworks of all sizes in their thousands and we were just about to find out why.

It turned out that there was no official countdown and no official fireworks display at all. It was left for the tens of thousands of half cut revelers to light and let off their own fireworks from WITHIN the crowd! It was a health and safety nightmare and my Mum will be glad she's reading this AFTER the event knowing we've still got our sight and both arms! ☺

Miraculously, we didn't see any accidents but dozens of times jumped out of our skins as people next to us let off firecrackers and fireworks the size of buckets.

The atmosphere was electric and there were non-stop fireworks for hours!

Dylan was suffering from sore lips (amongst other ailments!) so Lauren offered him some of her strawberry flavoumred, red lip balm, which he gratefully accepted..... in bulk! 

I videoed a few clips to give you an idea of where we were and what we experienced. 

Intro to the night. Maybe we'd had a couple of drinks!

http://youtu.be/NisiwwwnssM

Lewis sets of his firecrackers in a crazy frenzy of Cusco celebrations.

http://youtu.be/NcZTpH-0OMo

Gareth gets concerned about health & safety:

http://youtu.be/TLTVVA8H9rI

The only indicator that we'd reached midnight was the slight increase in firework intensity and as we hugged and celebrated together, thousands of people surged into the road and started running around the square. I had no idea why this was happening but it seemed fun so got involved and did a lap of Plaza de Armas, singing, shouting and generally celebrating with thousands upon thousands of people from hundreds of different countries. Lauren told me later that they run around the square 12 times, 1 for every month of the year as some kind of good luck tradition! We only did one lap but I'm pretty sure we'll be ok!

I took a video of this craziness. Watch the crowd behind me go crazy as they see me videoing them! The guy right behind me starts spraying beer at my phone so that's when it got put away for the time being!!

http://youtu.be/5tElvBnuNCE

The one dampner to the night was, during this lap of the square, packed all around with people pushing and shoving, Lewis had his iPhone stolen. A guy spontaneously grabbed him and hugged him (not unusual in this party atmosphere) and whilst this was happening, another guy pick-pocketed him. Really upsetting and a harsh reminder of where we are and that you can never underestimate the need for security whilst travelling.

Still, Lewis soldiered on and continued partying as we made our way through the cobbled back streets to a bar for a few early morning drinks!

On the bar next to the till was a very unusual sign that none of the female bar staff liked so they were grateful when Dylan and I removed said sign and started a competition, who could get the most tips for offering to show our cleavages....!!

To cut a long story short, I won and collected enough money to buy my next beer! Sorry Mum, a boy's gotta do what a boy's gotta do!

Most of us saw the night out....(sorry Eliot!)

In the not so early hours, Lauren and I left and walked back to our hotel picking up the usual stray dog en route! As the night staff let us in, our staffie cross let herself in too and it took three of us to get her to leave!

A very different but very lively new year had by all, and off to bed! ☺

Lauren's thoughts:

Well I'm writing this having had 5 hours sleep but feeling very happy. I must admit to feeling really old when we went to The Wild Rover to start our New Years Eve night. There seemed to be no space to breath let alone dance, the queues for the bar were relentless and the music was deafening. I hadn't been out on New Years Eve for years and I suddenly remembered why. So we headed to the main square around 11pm and the night went from minus to mass (Spanish pun). 

The atmosphere was electric. The fireworks were relentless (in an awesome way) and Gareth made it to midnight!!! For those of you who know Gareth well, he rarely makes it past midnight but not only have I had my Christmas miracle with Gareth staying awake until 3am.... I had a New Years miracle too. He made it until 5am #proud.

The start of our year was a pretty tough one but I am so thankful for the opportunity to have this adventure with my best friend. We have cried, laughed, shared some amazing experiences but overall grown in the love we have for each other and our creator. We don't know what 2015 will bring but I know with all the amazing people we have in our lives, the adventure will continue.