Inca´tastic

---

We went to the railway station to get tickets to the village below Machu Picchu and as expected we were limited with options. We took a bus and taxi to a really nice village on the river called Ollantaytambo where we had to stay over night in readiness for our 5.45am train to Aguas Calientes, a town about 8km from the ruins. It was raining when we got on the bus up to Machu Picchu but stopped shortly after Shaun bought a plastic poncho. Machu Picchu was amazing and better than any photographs make it look.

After looking round the ruins we managed to get one of the last passes up Huaynupicchu, a large mountain at the end of the ruins which you can climb using old inca steps to look over Machu Picchu from above. The "moderately strenuous nature" of the climb sounded easy. After an hour of huffing and puffing up steps which seemed more like a greasy stepladder, only with sheer drops of over 300 metres incase you make a mistake, we got to the top to be greeted by a massive rainbow over the ruins. Getting down was even worse than climbing up!!

After we finished and decided to leave the bus queue was so long we decided to walk down to the village. This meant that after another hour of steep decending down more bloody inca steps, we were totally knackered and headed back to our hostel to bed.

We got an early train back to Cusco the next day and had a lazy afternoon and have been horse riding today in the hills. We saw, yes you´ve guessed it, more inca ruins! It did involve a brief walk in a pitch black labarynth under ground which it has never been concluded where it goes to (2 men got lost under there a few years ago and were never seen again) which was a bit scary.

Boarding a flight to Iquitos tomorrow morning via Lima. We are heading to the largest city in the world without any road access, which sits on the Amazon in the middle of the jungle. The total flying time of about 4 hours was an expensive alternative to 40 hours by bus through the heart of the main cocaine producing valley, followed by 3 days by cargo boat to get to the same place (clearly we would have done this if we had more time!!)

Will write from the jungle soon but presuming we immediately head off on a jungle tour further up the Amazon for a few days it might be in 3 or 4 days time. Bring on the tarantulas, tribesmen, mosquitos and malaria (don´t worry mums, we will be taking the tablets that we didn´t take last time we went to the jungle!!)

Adios

---

Comments

[joni]

Up the town
cant believe you have chosen to visit a few old ruins and a bit of damp woodland (chop it down i say!) over seeing Town start the season on a flyer. Football season is back in full flow, get yer sens home. In reality, love your blogs. Keep em coming!

[Shaunbo]

Down the Town
Keeping up to date in the jungle and nice to see the opening day confidence was dampened by a 1st round cup loss (and to a team with half the Huddersfield team of last year). Back to reality !!!