Machu Picchu - In Pictures

Our first glimpse at Machu Picchu really wasn’t much. In fact we couldn’t see more than a handful of feet in front of us due to the rain and fog. We hightailed it up trail to a thatched roof hut and huddled inside for the next 2 and a half hours, trying to dry ourselves off, warm ourselves up and hoping all along that the rain would stop, the fog would clear and we would finally see something. Luckily for us, around 9AM, we were rewarded. First the rain stopped, then the sun fought it’s way through the clouds and eventually, what lay before us was this:

And suddenly, all the cold, rain and wind were worth it.

With our new found clarity, we spent the next 7 hours wandering and exploring the amazing Inka ‘lost city’. We had arrived early enough in the day to score one of the coveted 400 spots to climb Wayna Picchu, a set of hilltop ruins with an amazing overall view of the site. It is hard to put the beauty of Machu Picchu in words, we only hope the pictures below can do it some justice.

At the end of the day we hiked back down the mountain to Aguas Calientes, where we took the easy way out and caught the ‘backpacker’ train to a town called Ollantaytambo. From there a shared mini bus brought us the last 2 hours to Cusco where we had started a few short days earlier. Our way of doing Machu Picchu may have been different than the traditional route, but it definitely was an adventure and highlight of Peru.