Well, what a day! We had another rest day today and the opportunity to visit Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas and one of the seven wonders of the world. We were up at 5am for the 5 hour journey, first we had a bus ride, then we took a train, and that was just to get to the bottom of the mountain! The final sector was a half hour bus ride up a dusty track, anyway, much quicker than walking the Inca Trail like some people I know!
We had an idea that that it was going to be pretty good but nothing prepared us for what came next. Machu Picchu is an anchient city built on the saddle of a mountain flanked by sheer drops to the valley below. It wasn't sacked by the Spanish like most places in the area as they couldn't find it, it was simply abandoned by the people who lived there, for reasons which are still unclear, and left for nature to reclaim. Whilst the local Peruvians knew about it, it was secret to the outside world until 1911 when an American archeologist called Hiram Bingham discovered it.
It is a simply staggering place to visit, not just because of it's remote location or the quality of the architecture, it is magical and beyond belief, absolutely awesome.
We explored a mountain path cut into the rock which used to be the main access route, jaw dropping and not for the faint hearted. There were almost vertical drops to the valley and it finished, thankfully, at a wooden planked bridge which they used to use like a draw bridge to keep out unwanted visitors.
Go there!
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