Machu Picchu

Firstly, we were incredibly lucky  to buy tickets for entrance to Machu Picchu, as usually you have to buy them months in advance or face a long wait in Aguas Calientes, the small town before Machu Picchu, but luckily enough we managed to get-in the next day! 


On the morning of our visit to Machu Picchu we woke to bright blue skies,  a big relief as obviously it wouldn’t quite be the same experience with poor visibility. 


The journey to Machu Picchu was truly spectacular (with the other sensible tourists on the bus) up a hair-pinned,  mountain pass from an altitude of 2030 to 2430 metres.  Although the altitude was not as high as the past few days, the truly incredible position of Machu Picchu was astonishing. The enormity and remoteness was overwhelming, perched on top of an insanely high mountain with steep jungly slopes all around, begging the question how on earth was this magnificent citadel built…. (👽). We only saw a fraction of the enormous site but we learnt about the ingenious construction, including how the rocks are carved to fit precisely into the adjacent rocks without the use of mortar, enabling them to withstand the harsh weathers and earthquakes. 


Despite the thousands of visitors each day, it was easy to find a little secret hideaway, hang your legs over the side of one of the terraces and truly feel the serenity of the place. We watched the alpacas munching away at the grass; the hummingbirds sip the nectar; the swallows swoop  in-and-out of the rocks, and the American kestrel guard his little patch high up on the rocks. 


We had our reservations about visiting Machu Picchu at the start of the day as after the amazing scenery we’d seen, we thought it might be a bit unexciting and perhaps a bit of a tourist-trap. This was certainly not the case and Machu Picchu well surpassed our expectations:  we are truly grateful for the reward at the end of an incredible journey to it.


After a wonderful day, we sat down for dinner in a quaint little restaurant in the town …Tristan suddenly ran-out and vomitted, about an hour later back in our room it was my turn, then John’s and then finally Seb!

Who doesn’t love a good bout of really terrible food poisoning to round off a magical day🤮. (We narrowed it down to avocado which we shared for lunch - which can carry listeria or salmonella - nice….)

We played bathroom relay all night and very much looked forward to getting up early for our train journey the next morning…

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