Machu Picchu and Wayna Picchu

Machu Picchu, Peru
18th June

The only way to be first into Machu Picchu in the morning is to get to the entrance point at the river first, and then to hike the steps from the river base up to the ticket gate outside the ruins. So this is what we did! I was fourth in, Sean fifth and I was first girl by a long shot. Thankfully it was still dark so it was more difficult to see my red sweaty face, delightful! Our guide Amorso had told us that you could do the 400m hike in minimum 40 minutes so we were happy with our 34/35 minutes powered by self-praising remarks such as 'we're pro athletes, total legends!'

A cloudy day meant for quite a dramatic entry into one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. It was great to have the opportunity to take photos of the Incan site without any tourists in it yet. We were also delighted with ourselves for getting the tickets to climb Wayna Picchu and have the full panoramic view of the Urubamba Valley. At about 1pm after climbing the extra 300m to Wayna Picchu and spending in total about 7 hours in the park we were done with the ancient city, but we did feel truly fortunate to have seen it all from the top of Wayna. Only 400 people get to climb Wayna Picchu and only 2500 people can enter Machu Picchu as part of efforts to curtail the visitors and preserve the site. It's a shame it's so expensive up there, they charge American tourist prices which is okay for the elderly tour groups who get the bus up (one way is $9) and pay a fortune for water and a sandwich. Needless to say we walked back down the steep steps instead of paying for the tourist bus and indulged in a family size pizza for lunch, burritos for dinner and a few pisco sours. Note: Sean had an alpaca burrito and said it was tasty stuff! 


Soooo many photos SO.. if photos don't look good click on it, the pixels load better if you click on it!


SEANIE ON PIKACHU:
Great pictures, we killed in on the race up from the gate even if I was struggling a bit (turns out a cigarette is NOT the breakfast of champions) Also touched some sacred stone that apparently cured Michael J. Fox of cancer even tho I wasn't supposed to... I just wanted to be one step closer to being Marty McFly and also to spite the warden  for being a bit of a prick to the girls we were with. Huyna Picchu = piece of piss as it turns out but a great spot to take the world in and I suppose you can get some nice pics from there if you want.

First in!

Sun Temple

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Amoroso with a photo of Sun Temple on the 21st of June

Inside the sacred Sun Temple, built in places for mummies and shrines etc.

Drains. Mad clever.

Royal Palace 

It's ready for a roof

  

Count how many spots the sun shines through.

Humpty dumpty sat on a wall.

Happy pro-athletes!

Precision block building.

Serious amount of man hours put into those terraces!

Wayna Picchu rising over the Incan city, que Seanie pun which goes something along the lines of... 'I wanna picture!'

Shufflin'

Sample of a roof.

The Sacred Rock, a vertical rock which resembles the foreground has got to have been put there by aliens.

Gotta love trapezoidal windows. 

Toilets are at the entrance, quick run back before climbing Wayna Picchu.

Incredible! If you look carefully you can see the little stone path between the bus route and the city that we climbed to get up and down. Turns out some girl threw herself of here and to find her body they had to cut across from the ruins to find it as there was no path down and no path up from the river, so in the process they found more ruins which are set to totally enlarge the area in the next 15 years. Martyr!

  

Putting the Freddos in perspective.

Some height, some sight!

And now, one with tourists in it!