The least important and most disappointing news to many. We didn´t get killed by the earthquake, actually I didn´t even feel it. It supposedly hit the area we were staying at around 4 richter scale, so nothing near the 7 at the epicenter.
Aguas Calientes is a really nice though a bit too touristy town in a valley quite near the Machu Pichu, we have scenic views of the mountains covered in jungle and the river running trough the valley just out of our hostel room.
Machu Picchu
We woke up at 5AM, had breakfast and went to the buss queue at 6AM, everything you wanna do after having just three hours of sleep for some reason. After we got to Machu Picchu it was time to queue again as we wanted to go to Wayna Picchu and they only let the 400 first there each day. We arrived at the end of the queue at 7AM and got our numbers, 193 and 194. After this it was queuing again, for over an hour until we got on the trail up. They write up the details of everybody going up so that deaths are easy to notice and report and everybody has to sign out when they´re done.
The climb was amazing, the views were fantastic and my breath not. I was sweating like a pig all the way up which took about 85 minutes for us, even though it was quite chilly as we were climbing inside a cloud. The steps where quite treacherous after it had rained during the last night, and ofcourse they weren´t a wonder of modern engineering, really uneven and different in sizes. Before reaching the top we had to crawl trough a cave entrance, which was not designed for fat people, actually the whole place isn´t designed for fat people. But we made it to the top safely and toasted it with a sip of whisky.
The view from the top was simply mind bending, the photos can´t describe it, words can´t describe it, you really have to experience it yourself to truly understand it.We spent about and hour on the top waiting the clouds to disappear so we could shoot some aerial shots of Machu Picchu and the surrounding area.
The way down was even more scary than coming up as you´re always watching down and it´s a bit harder to keep your balance, but ofcourse it was easier going and faster. We reached the bottom in about 45 minutes, after which we enjoyed a small lunch and continued on to the ruins of Machu Picchu and took some more photos.
At 2.30PM we took the buss down to Aguas Calientes, got our backpacks from our hostel and got the 16.20 train back to Ollaytambo and from there it was a 1.5 hour buss ride back to Cuzco.
Oh yeah, I forgot, the camera decided to develop a memory card error so if my luck is bad and I can´t recover the pictures back in Finland, well I´m screwed as I didn´t do any CD backups as I trust them even less than memory cards.
