Machu Picchu

We had a four day tour for Machupicchu which was one day cycling, 2 days trekking, some of which was along an Inka path (not the Inka path), and a day at Machupicchu. It turned out there was just me and Alexa on our tour so we had our own guide. This was good because we had no faff but bad because we had no chat... It worked out ok though because we knew a load of people from the Loki who were doing the same tour as us but with a different agency so we crossed paths with them numerous times and got a little banter!

On the first day we sat on a public bus for over 5hrs (very irritating) but apparently the rain (there wasn´t any) meant it was dangerous to cycle. After we finally did get to cycle the bikes were so small and uncomfortable I wanted to get back on the bus! It was fun though and our guide was very good. That night we stayed in a tiny town and shared a room with a couple of Chilean girls but found the other group and had beers with them.

This is us with "princess paint" on our faces, we got the expression a bit wrong.

On the second day we were up early and hiked for about 12km. We walked along an amazing Inka path that went up over a mountain and had great views, we were lucky to have blue sky and sunshine. Lazed around in hammocks for a while over lunch time before hiking another couple of hours along the river to some hot springs. They were really nice springs, huge like a swimming pool but with the hot water just filtering out of the rocks. In the evening, it being Valentines Day, our guide was adament that we had to go to the disco. It turned out to be a messy and late night because the other group were all there including Dave and Will who we´d met in Huacachina. The early start the next day was slightly painful especially for the guides.

The hot springs:

The next day we walked for only 4 hours but half of that was along train tracks and was very dull. We were also all half dead due to lack of sleep. We arrived in Aguas Calientes (nearest town to Machupicchu) about 3pm and crashed out and slept all afternoon.

Me and Christian (our guide):

The next morning Alexa and I got up at 4am and climbed up the steps to Machupicchu on our own in pitch black and without a torch. We were one of the first lots to get up there though and so easily got tickets for Waynapicchu (the famous mountain the over looks Machupicchu). We had a pretty good tour round the site and then climbed Waynapicchu. I got challenged by an old French guy to run up so I did and he followed amazingly! The view was amazing. We were so lucky because it had been really thick fog/cloud that morning but by 10.30am it was hot sun. I burnt my nose again.

This is me right at the top of Waynapicchu with a couple of Americans we met:

The view of Machupicchu:

We sat at the top for ages and slept and sunbathed and ate grapefruit:

After we decended we wandered round Machupicchu alone. It´s awesome, I loved it. It is a shame about some of the reconstruction but still it´s a fabulous site mainly because of the scenary. A few snaps from around (we made good use of the timer function):

We then climbed up to the top on the otherside of the city and got great views of Waynapicchu behind the city. The classic photo:

After we had trekked back down the mountain we caught the train and bus back to Cusco and celebrated the day with a bottle of wine and a few games of Killer pool. Didn´t sleep until 2am and even then we were in the 18bedded dorm so were woken up at a lovely 7.30am. I was not happy. Didn´t really achieve a whole lot the next day in Cusco but I had a big night out that evening. Went out with Will, a guy called Alex and a group of random Irish to Roots and then when that closed at 4am, to Mama Africas. Needless to say I was in no fine state the next day and left Alexa to shop in Cusco alone. That evening we got an overnight bus to Arequipa and arrived at 5am then had to sleep on a sofa in a hostel like bums until our room was ready.