Day 6: Aguas Calientes to Cusco, in which we visit one of the modern wonders of the world
I awoke early to the sound of trains rolling into the train station beside the hotel, and after a quick breakfast we ventured out into the early morning light to join a long queue for the buses up to Machu Picchu.
Before setting off we had each been handed two very important and very small pieces of paper, one being the ticket for the bus and the other the ticket for the site itself. These, along with our passports, were checked many times as we approached and boarded the bus, and I could only thank my lucky stars that there were no gusts of winds threatening to blow these important bits of paperwork from my grasp. After our bus had weaved up the hillside, offering tantalising glimpses of what ultimately awaited us at the top, what first awaited us turned out to be another queue to pass through the entrance where we would present our tiny pieces of paper one more time.
After the queuing and anxiety-inducing bureaucracy, we were finally free to ascend the last portion of the mountain. Happily, we were still at a lower elevation compared with Cusco and so I was only mildly breathless as we reached the top, and then… we were there.
I don’t really have the words to describe Machu Picchu itself, so I am just going to post some pictures and hope that they do it justice. All I will say is that it was everything I had hoped it would be and more, and not only were the ruins themselves remarkable, but the cloud forest location was unspeakably beautiful and otherworldly. As with Sacsayhuaman, I didn’t find the age of the ruins particularly remarkable but the staggering ingenuity require to construct such a sophisticated settlement was a true marvel.
Exploring the citadel
After several extraordinary hours up on the mountain, it was time to dig out our tiny bus tickets and return to the town in the valley, where later in the day a train would be waiting to take us back to Ollantaytambo, and from there we would journey on back to Cusco.
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