30th Sept - Machu Picchu

Today was Machu Picchu day. I've seen photos of this place over the years and yeah it looks ok, but I've never really had any mad desire to go there. Really only went on this tour cos there was plenty of hiking and would be good craic. Having now seen Machu Picchu it completely blew me away. It was utterly magnificent. The scale of it, the beauty of it, I find it very hard to describe and certainly no photos I've ever seen could do it justice. I'd rank it as almost the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Got up late enough ie 5am! Got the bus with Rosie, took a relaxing 20mins to get to the top. Arrived and all the lads from both tours were there. They all looked shattered after the tortuous climb that they started at 4am. Eejits!


Justin, Tim, Evan, Matt, Rich, Rob pretending not to be knackered after the punishment march up the hill. "Yeah, I'm glad I did it, but don't think I'd do it again" Sure you are...



Met our new guide Fredy (Silvio had made some bull excuse the night before about needing to head back to Cusco) and God love him his English was terrible. So what followed was a three hour chat about the glory of Machu Picchu as we walked around it which absolutely no one wanted to listen to. It was v tough going. Finished eventually around 9am and everyone went for a relaxing snooze on the grass. Very nice!



Lost City and Waynapichu from ground level




Beautiful. With the Lost City and Waynapichu in the background



This has Facebook profile picture written all over it!


Just before 10, most of the tours left to march up Waynapichu which is the big mountain in all the photos. I had no notion of doing this - really don't have a head for heights and I'd heard it was dangerous enough so not for me. I climbed up a bit to get an overall view of the place and it was only then that it struck me how stunning the place was. I chatted to a lad working there for a while about the whole place, played with some llamas then, went and sat down overlooking the whole place for about 2 hours. It was amazing.



From slightly further away, where I sat admiring the view for 2 hours



The llamas at the top were unbelievably tame

 

Ah, what a lovely llama

On the front of my Peru guide book was a picture of Machu Picchu with a llama superimposed in front of it. My aim was to get a photo like that but a real one.

Here's the Lonely Planet cover:

And here's the photo I took - stupid llama moved just at the last second. Gutted!

Anyway, I got over that trauma and spotted a bunch of Japanese lads predictably going ape for photos with llamas. A behaviour I find very amusing:



So after all that excitement, I moved to a different viewpoint and waited for the rest of the lads who all turned up around 1.30.

Quick bite to eat and then we went to see a bridge the Incas built nearby. It was incredibly steep - the row of trees in these photos show where the trail went after the tiny bridge. It was totally sheer beneath this! About 500m to the bottom!



The Inca bridge. Closed off now due to the sheer cliffs




Line of trees in the middle is where the trail went in Inca times. Sheer cliffs below!


Anyway, came back and everyone else had had enough and wanted to head back to Aguascalientes. Stubbornly I wanted to stay and chillax some more. Sadly after about ten mins, a massive cloud was moving in with impressive amounts of rain imminent. Time to go.



Uh oh, storm clouds a-coming!


Walked down with John from London and Martina from Italy. She used to work in So:uk on Clapham High St and told a couple of "interesting" stories about the owners Lee Chapman and Leslie Ash. Sadly Martina had never sung the Eric Cantona song to either of them, the song being: "He's French, he's flash, he's riding Leslie Ash*... Can-to-naaa Can-to-naaa!"... prob wouldn't have gone down too well anyway!

* allegedly


John, Me, Martina

Came back to Aguascalientes and as we'd all checked out, I couldn't find any of the lads - like an idiot, I hadn't arranged a place to meet them. Spent a good 3 hours wandering around. Saw everyone else who I'd met on other tours around the place but no sign of my tour! Very frustrating. I searched pretty much every restaurant in that town. Except one. Which is where they were. Apparently the previous hour had been spent with about 14 people having a laugh about a great wk and what they'd seen! Gutted. Though I suppose i was sick/asleep for most of it so wouldn't have had much to add!



At least I used the 3 hours away from the lads very wisely!



Anyway, eventually met the lads and before we went to catch the train at 10.30 leading to the midnight punishment bus, we needed to find somewhere to eat. As we looked, we ran into a parade! It was Aguascalientes's annual day of celebration! Could this day have any more! Here's the parade on the street:



After looking at that for a short while, we decided to treat ourselves to a slap up meal in a delicious, award winning French restaurant. Incredible food. Amazing! Few vinos and rums and we were all in great drunken form on the train. Train only went half way though so at midnight emerged into this "bus station" where it was basically a bunch of locals fighting to give us lifts for 90 mins to cusco. Eventually found someone to take us - landed back around 1.30.

What a day!