Machu Picchu

Now feeling much better we jumped on the 4hour train journey to the town of Aguas Caliantes (Hot Springs), closest town to Machu Picchu. The train journey itself was very slow but the amazing scenery more than made up for it.

We arrived just after 10am and found somewhere to stay, we planned to see Machu Picchu the following day. The town of Aguas Caliantes is set in a deep valley surrounded by lush forest. It could have been beautiful, but as you can see in the pictures it was more like a building site!

The following morning we were up at 4am and set off to make sure we were the first ones into Machu Piccu. It was quite a hike up the side of the mountain, not quite the Inka Trail but the next best thing!

After 1 1/2 hours of climbing steps we reached the entrance to Machu Picchu. Slightly worn out but excited to be the first ones in. The coach bringing the first lot of tourists arrived and we were straight in at 6am. We quickly went to the place where the classic shot is taken in hope to try to take a picture without any obscure tourists in the photos. Fantastic.

The photos again cant describe how you feel when you are looking down on the site. It is huge, many different areas that were used for different purposes for the Inka´s. For example below is a picture of the residential sector.

We spent approximatley 6 hours at the site exploring all the different areas. There are many walks you can do around the site, but as I (Rob) found out they involve cliff hugging paths, the phrase ´my bum is beginning to twitch was used often´ as I am not good with heights!

Em moved in quickly!