The train journey is very long, although beautiful, we see the outskirts of Cusco and the poverty of Peru to the rolling landscape and rapids of the rivers. The train is very small and a bit odd as you face the people opposite you, a Dutch man and a Italian man, and it is so cramped that you have to intertwine all the legs to fit opposite, I'm glad Colin and I are short. We then have to spend several hours like this, rather uncomfy.
We get to see out third type of jungle as Aguas Calientes is in mountainous jungle and the scenery is magnificant, the town is surrounded by beauftiful mountains. Unfortunately the town is not so beautiful, a breeze block tourist trap.
We buy our bus tickets and our tickets to Machu Picchu itself, by far the most expensive thing we have done so far and very touristy.
The next day the 20th we are up early and catch one of the 1st buses up the mountain at 6am as we want to see the sun raise. It is my Nans 90th birthday and I phone her on the bus which is winding its way up the mountain to Machu Picchu, but soon we lose signal as we are up so high.
The bus trip itself is quite cool as it winds its way slowly up the mountain. When we get there, a queue is already forming, but while this is going on there is a passport stamp for Machu Picchu and so I stamp both of our passports.
When in Machu Picchu the climb starts straight away with a very step incline right from the start. It is really foggy as well as we can see very little of the view downwards, straight away I am not very keen as the paths are very small, windy and the drops are incredible, I find it all very scary !!!!! Even so I want to go to the sun gate as this is where the most spectaular views are from and so we take this path even though it is suppose to take 1 and 1/2 hours just to get there. We then start on this path not to bad to start with fairly even and very wide, soon it gets narrower and narrower, thankfully the fog is hanging around as the path is now right next to the edge of the mountain. We continue up the path and it continues to narrow and get stepper and rougher. The fog then lifts in an instant and you can see the view we are right next to a drop of hundreds of meters and I am really scared. Unfortunately I wimp out before making it too the top, not one of my better ideas.
Although on the way back down the fog has cleared and we get the traditional picture postcards view of the ruins, fabulous. Also we are met by a pack of lamas we step out of there way as they slowly stroll past.
We spend the rest of the days looking around the ruins, all of it is up high and very scary drops. Not my favourite thing we have done so far. Also by mid day it is very hot, so we leave by 1pm, back to the relative cool of the bus and the journey down.
