The river Urubamba was pretty fierce in parts.

He must have been on his holidays from Lima, certainly in deepest Peru now.

The buses used to take you up to Machu Picchu.

The river Urubama that horseshoes the Machu Picchu site, some 400m below.

The site is surrounded by four mountains, one at each cardinal compass point.

A hummingbird, he was too quick for me to catch him hovering.

They just wander round keeping the grass short.

The terraces used to grow the food for the residents.

We had a couple of pisco sours after our tour, they weren't too shabby at all.

We were given these in our lunch boxes, I had to ask a local how you peeled it.

It looked like green frog spawn, but tasted similar to passion fruit.

I could just sit and watch this torrent all day,

Will be getting this off to the BBB for verification!

Machu Picchu

February 2 in Peru ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

Today we were picked up at 4:35am for a day trip to Machu Picchu. A taxi from the hotel took us to pick up the coach for the 2 hour journey to Ollantaytambo where we picked up the scenic train to Machu Picchu. The train followed the Urubamba river along a narrow valley surrounded by high sided mountains.

We arrived at Machu Picchu town just before 9am, a place set up around 80 years ago to service the first tourists when an access road was built up to the Machu Picchu site. The town is now 3,000 strong but still has no road access. The only way in or out is by train, the river passing through the town is far too ferocious for any form of transport.

A 25 minute bus journey takes you up the 400m of climbing to the site via a windy and narrow in parts road. The site is every bit as impressive as it looks in all the photos I've seen of it. Construction started in 1440 but the site was abandoned 90 years later before it was even complete due to the Spanish coming to South America. What makes the site so interesting to archeologists is that the Spanish never found Machu Picchu so it was never altered by a new incoming culture.

Our tour of the site lasted 2 hr 45 mins. Due to illness some others who were coming today weren't able to, so we had the guide all to ourselves, we effectively had a private tour. We were very lucky with the weather, despite hearing thunder in the mountains for some time the rain kept away. In the direct sun it was very warm especially with all the layers, so fortunately up there it was mostly cloudy.

The tour was excellent, however the fun and games started when we went to get our 16:12 train back to Ollantaytambo. We were told there would be a delay as another company's train had a problem on the single track line ahead. Thirty minutes later we boarded the train but still didn't have a time for setting off. Then about 2 hours after we should have set off, it turned out there had been debris thrown onto the line, which a train had run into causing a partial derailment. One passenger had a video of the immediate aftermath, though my question was how did he get hold of this, will have to get BBC Verify onto this one. Anyway 2 hours soon turned to 4 hours and then to 5 hours, I was thinking I'll just be glad to get back to Cusco at anytime tonight. We finally left 5 hours 40 minutes late, then the bus to Cusco and then the taxi back to our hotel, we got in at 1:35am. Twentyone hours after we set off!Read more