Day 4 - Machu Picchu

Our alarm went off at 3:20am! We were given 2 options for our ascent to Machu Picchu. You could either get the bus or do as the Inkas did and walk up the 1,700 steps. We decided to walk along with Lukas whilst the other 4 members (Annie was back with us again) of the group opted for the bus.

We left the hostel around 4:10am and set off on the 30 minute walk to join the long queue of other maniacs that thought walking up would be a good idea. The gate opened at 5am and after a quick passport and ticket check we were on our way.

I don't think I had been walking for more than 5 minutes before I was already exhausted. Those Inkas sure didn't make nice steps. Some of them were huge, others tiny and some were floating steps sticking out of a wall! Apparently the quickest ever time for walking up the steps was 19 minutes. We did it in just under an hour. I genuinely have no idea how anyone could get up there in 19 minutes!

JC met us at the top as even he got the bus and we went through the main gates to start our 2 hour tour of Machu Picchu. I've seen lots of pictures of Machu Picchu but it was so strange to actually be there walking around. It really is quite spectacular. JC started by giving us some history on the Inkas and Machu Picchu and then as we walked around pointed out certain things. One things for sure those Inkas were very clever!

After the tour JC said his goodbyes and we were free to roam as we pleased. We started off by walking up to the Guards Hut to take the iconic Machu Picchu picture, stopping off to take a lama selfie or two on the way (I got my best lama selfie so far!) We were incredibly lucky with the weather and have been for the entire trek. It hasn't rained once! The sky's were blue and there was hardly a cloud in sight which meant we had a great view of Machu Picchu. You see many peoples pictures and you can't even see Machu Picchu as it is completely covered in mist!

Simon and I had purchased an extra ticket to walk up Machu Picchu Mountain so we headed off to do that next. This was like the journey up to Machu Picchu but 100 times worse! I'm not ashamed to say either that we got half way up and decided to walk back down (which is no easy task). From the top you get a view down over Machu Picchu however there were many viewpoints on the way up and we already had a great view. In addition to this, my knee started making some very loud unnatural grating and popping noises so we took that as a sign that our bodies (especially mine) were over walking up a ridiculously large number of higgledy piggledy steps.

We were both absolutely shattered so we retreated back to the bottom to have some lunch and a little rest. After lunch, a large glass of coke and a brownie the size of my face, we set off to explore the main part of Machu Picchu. After around an hour we decided that we'd had enough and would catch the bus back down to Aguas Calientes.

The night before JC had pointed out a hot spring so we made that our first port of call. It wasn't anywhere near as nice as the one we visited before but we were sore and tired so we went for it anyway. My bikini definitely came out a funny shade of brown but it helped.

To get back to Cusco we had to book a train. This costs almost as much as our entire 4 day jungle tour so as we are poor travellers we went for the cheapest train which doesn't leave until 8:50pm. It doesn't even take us all the way to Cusco, just Ollantaytambo. From there we have to get a 2 hour taxi back to Cusco. We got out of the spa around 4:30pm so we had a long time to kill. We therefore spent the next 4 hours eating dinner, sitting in the main square people watching, playing I spy and drinking coffee.Read more