Victoria and Justin: It's the big one, Machu Picchu!

The most popular way to Machu Picchu is via the famous Inca Trail, a four day trek through the mountains, unfortuntely there's a limited number of people allowed on the trail each day which means it's now booked up 4 months in advance. We missed out on the trek but with Victoria sick in bed for 3 days it was proberly a blessing in disguise. So, we took the less adventurous route, the train.

The 2hr train journey takes you along the narrow valley floor, with pretty amazing scenery, and into the town of Aguas Caliente, at the base of Machu Picchu. It's an ugly little town, set up to exploit the millions of people coming to see the famous Inca site. We had some lunch, bought our tickets for the next day and got into bed early.

Friday morning, we wake at 4am and rushed down to the bus stop to get in line, you ask why? The first 400 people into Machu Picchu also get a stamp to climb 'Wayna Picchu', the mountain which rises above the great city (It's the big cone shaped one in all the photos). Anyway, I was about the 20th person in line, so we might have slightly over estimated the demand for these tickets but by 4:30am there were hunderds of people in line. Net/net, a good result.

It's 6am now, we're inside the Machu Picchu park, we're walking up the steps through some trees. Well, we reach the top, come out of the trees and there it stands, Machu Picchu, in all it's glory. At first, the size and scale of the site was breathtaking, it's massive! I kept wondering, how did these guys build all this, and at the top of this mountain.

At 6:30am the clouds (and rain) came rolling in, we couldn't see further than about 20metres. Damn it! Our day was potentially becoming quite disappointing. We decided to take cover under a rock and read our books for an hour. We then ventured out, trying to make the most of the day. By 9am, the clouds we're lifting, and at 10am it was all clear. We walked the entire site, checking out the temples, the stone work, the terraces, it's all amazing.

A little after 10am, we climbed Waynu Picchu, it was 40mins of steps heading straight up. Hats off to Victoria, she pushed on to the top despite suffering a mild case of vertigo. And it was all worth it, the view back over Machu Picchu was epic.

It was midday, we'd been up since 4am, Machu Picchu was now crawling with bus loads of tour groups, and we'd seen all we needed to see. We headed back down into town, had a shower, some lunch, then checked out the craft market (just more of the same old crap). Our train departed at 6pm back to Ollantaytambo, the last town serviced by road along the valley and the site of more Inca ruins (but nowhere near as impressive as MP). We stayed the night, walked around town in the morning, then jumped a bus back to Cusco. What an amazing experience.