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Published: August 29th 2008
We decided not to do the Inca Trail due to time constraints. Instead we took the train from Cuzco to the sleepy little town of Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu town) and stayed in a hostel there for a couple of days. Following the advice of a number of locals we decided to take two days to explore Machu Picchu, the first to explore the hill of Wayna Picchu, and the second to actually explore Machu Picchu itself.
The first morning there we woke up bright and early and headed down to the bus stop around 5am in order to catch the 5:30 bus. We were quite surprised to find a huge line up already there, we would have never guessed there were that many people actually staying in the town as it is quite small and had seemed empty the night before. We got in line hoping we would be able to catch a 5:30 bus, there was no need to worry, at 5:30-on-the-dot the busses started driving up and they just kept coming. The buses dropped us off at the gate where we were greeted with what appeared to be an even bigger line, but once the gates
open the lines moved quickly and we were in an on our way on no time. Our plan was to head straight across Machu Picchu and get in line to hopefully be one of the 400 allowed to hike up Wayna Picchu, however when we rounded the corner and saw the city laid out before us for the first time we just had to stop and take it in. It looked just like all the pictures, but yet we still weren't prepared for how amazing it would be especially in the early morning fog with the sun just beginning to light up the mountains. After stopping for a few pictures we continued on to Wayna Picchu and got in line. We were lucky enough to be in the first group of 200 to climb the mountain, probably because of the sign at the front gate that was posted saying it was already full for the day, that we had chosen to ignore! The ruins at the top of Wayna Picchu weren't all that impressive compared to Machu Picchu, however the view of Machu Picchu and the surrounding mountains were well worth it. Since we still had lots of time left
we decided to continue on the trail around the mountain to the Great Cavern/Temple of the Moon. This turned out to be a much longer hike than we anticipated, and at times we were worried that we had somehow gotten on the wrong path as we were hiking for about an hour without seeing a soul. Eventually we did make it, again the ruins weren't all that impressive, but the adventure of the hike itself was a lot fun!
The Second day we spent leisurely exploring Machu Picchu itself, and of course taking lots of pictures, words can't really do it justice so we will let the pictures speak for themselves.
Cheers
Tim and Meagan
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khalid
non-member comment
salut
hi yeu asl