Machu Picchu

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This is a little late but can still remember the feeling of arriving and seeing and experiencing one of the most incredible manmade wonders...........

18th October 2008........4am wake up....feeling pretty good considering the time.......get dressed.....go to reception of hotel to meet rest of the group who wanted to get to Machu Picchu early......look outside and it is pouring with rain...everyone is feeling pumped and ready and not dampened by the rain in the slightest, if anything it adds to the moment......set off for the bus stop where we are due to meet our guide at 4.45am.....only a few other people there so we stand in line...still dark and pouring with rain, everyone is excited as today we get the bus to machu picchu......at 5.30am still no sign of our guide, we guess he has slept in so we get on the first bus and head up the hill to the gates of machu Picchu.

The bus ride itself was amazing, very steep winding road, overlooking mountains with clouds creeping through, clouds above and below us! The rain had eased and it looked like it was going to be a nice day, it was daylight now as well. We arrived at the gates of machu Picchu a few minutes before 6am when it was due to open with 3 people in front. As soon as the gates were open we showed out tickets and started walking up to the gate to get tickets to Wanna Picchu mountain.......as we started walking through the ruined city I was amazed at how big it was and how magical it felt. It completely blew me away!! We were the first people to walk through that morning and that felt pretty special it was definately worth getting up early for!! It was niot raining at this stage and the cloud had cleared for us so we got a really good view of the whole city.....I was speechless and that is saying something after how I had felt during the Lares trek not thinking anything could top what I had seen but Machu Picchu is a truely inspiring place when you see how much the incas achieved at a time without technology! Building a city on the top of a mountain in the middle of a rainforest.....and it is still standing today, so they built it to last!!

We got our tickets for Wanna Picchu to go up at 10am so went to meet the rest of the group and had a tour from our guide Jhon, who incidentally had slept in so arrived whilst we were in the queue for Wanna Picchu tickets. The tour lasted 2 and half hours and was fantastic as we got a real insight into why and how it was structured......during this time the rain had set in again so we were all pretty wet even in our wet weather gear! Those that were doing the walk up Wanna Picchu set off together at first but Joe set quite a pace and I decided to follow him. The average time to get to the top us an hour but by the time we reached the first look out Joe had done it in 30mins and I was a few minutes behind. Due to the cloud there was not much of a view so we trek the last 10 mins to the top up very steep slippery steps and reached the very top point which had it been clear I think would have freaked me out as there was not a lot of space up there. As it was cloudy you could't see how high you were so it just felt amazing to have done the climb in such a good time!!! Great adrenalin rush! Whulst up there the cloud did clear at times but not enough for a clear view of Machu Picchu.

Have to say the whole experience of Lares Valley and Machu Picchu was outstanding, although it was hard work the sense of achievement along with the amazing landscapes and inca history gave me such a high!!

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