FINALLY! Machu Picchu

Yes, yes, yesterday it finally happened - I got to Machu Picchu. Dear lord, I had been waiting for it!

Took a ridiculous (again, yes) amount of photos, of course, and got some pretty ones, but this one sort of sums everything up (as you can't do justice to that place in one shot, you just can't - or at least I can't).

We traveled all morning from Cuzco. After the taxi, bus, train and another bus ride me and my aunt climbed on top of the city, to the so called Hut of the Caretaker. This is the place all the iconic photos of MP are taken.

It was a hot and sweaty climb. My aunt has a bad hip. People stopped us on our way and asked us to take photos of them posing against Wayna Picchu. There were crowds, the stairs and paths are steep and narrow.

When we finally got to the (motherfucking) Hut of the (motherfucking) Caretaker, I saw everything I have wanted to see for a long time now. And so much more! Nobody tells you that the view over the ruins is just one thing - behind it (left from this picture) is a deadly drop against a staggeringly beautiful wall of mountains. Something like that surrounds the whole mountain, and it's hard to choose where to look. Every ten minutes the light is different on the buildings (those cunning Incas, worshippers of the sun!) which makes it even more fascinating.

So, there I was, sitting and catching my breath and trying to understand the absurdity of the fact that at a time people have actually lived and knitted sweaters in this place. There was this guide in all beige and khaki next to me, leaning on a rock, and I realised, this is somebody's workplace. This just might be some teenagers first summer job.

I don't know why I'm writing all this, it's irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are places in the world which are impossible to capture on image. I got some good ones, and although I'll enjoy looking at them, they feel sort of... pointless. I can't tell a story where all the possible stories have already been told. Can I?

But I got there! For a rare moment in my life, I wanted to get somewhere and actually did. And I'd do it again tomorrow, honestly. I could sit on a patch of grass up there for a week and just stare. At rocks, air, silence. Swallows.

Yep - the only creatures up there among the tourists where llamas and swallows. The llamas are clearly taken care of by the beige dudes, but the swallows were free and acting like they owned the place. Maybe they do.

Bless that beige tour guide and that something stuck between his teeth that he's trying to get out without no-one noticing.