#45 Machu Picchu

Not even the prospect of being at Machu Picchu was enough to make the 4am start okay. Luckily our hostel served breakfast from ridiculously early so we got some food before jumping into the queue to get up to Machu Picchu. By half 5 we were on our way and we managed to be one of the first 15 or so people to be admitted into the inca city for the day.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't ideal... with lots of fog obscuring the view of the mountains and the rain starting at 6am and continuing on and off throughout the day. Those are the risks of going in rainy season, the benefits being the 3000 less people who visit everyday in comparison to high season.

Turning the corner to the citadel was like nothing I've ever seen before. Knowing how high in the mountains we were it was so impossible to understand how or why they had built such a huge city, right up in the clouds. We went for an explore before our tour, discovering that the Incas really did love some stairs! A trip to the Inca bridge led us along some fairly dubious paths without railings but gave us some insane views of the river and jungle below. We met our guide at 8am and he gave us 2 hours of information about the history and structures of the place. By the sounds of things, the Incas had architecture and civil engineering nailed before anyone else. Afterwards I climbed up to the sungate, where the Inca trail meets the Machu Picchu site. Again, fog meant I couldn't actually see anything 10 feet in front of me but the walk was worth it even if I got no pictures of MP from above.

By mid afternoon we had climbed more stairs than we thought was possible in a morning and the site had begun to fill up with people who had travelled to Aguas Calientes on the morning train. We took our last pictures, stamped our passports with the Machu Picchu stamp, and hiked back down to Aguas Calientes. It was apparent that MP and our early start had tired us out completely when Josie fell asleep at the dinner table later. We hopped on our train at around 6pm and were back in Cusco by 11pm.