When I planned my South America trip, this was my #1 highlight, in fact I thought that I must see that if not anything else. Anyway, I finally visited Machu Pichu and it was beyond my imagination. It was a very touristic place and that is not surprising to me at all, but I still loved it all. The pictures that I saw before were not anything different from the actual place. It was probably the only big Inca ruin that was mostly untouched and not discovered for a long time and not destroyed by the first Spaniards who came to Peru but did not know about this site.The vegetation at this place with the combination of the colors of the mountains around it makes it so pretty and picture-perfect that it is simply amazing! Rest of my team did the 4 day Inca- trail and reached Machu Pichu on the morning of the 4th day. I, on the other hand, had a very relaxed time in Cusco for 2 full days and stayed one night in Sacred Valley and took the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes on a very early morning. It was my first train ride on South America and was quite nice to see the mountains, river and fountains through out the one and half hour journey. From Aguas Calientes, we took a bus ride of twenty five minutes to Machu Pichu for meeting the group. Whe we met them at the entrance of Machu Pichu, they were all smiling, three days agao, all seemed quite tensed and nervous and I took a picture of all of them just before they were leaving for the trail. I was glad to see all of them smiling and being able to finish the trail with no major issues. I heard later that few were not feeling good at all, one fainted, all had a struggling second day as it was the toughtest day of the hike when they crossed the dead woman´s pass, it was the highest and the steepest part of the trek as well.
I have to say that it was an easy one for me while rest of the team did all the hard work in that Inca-trail. I wish I could do that but I really am not that fit physically and could not possibly handle the camping for 3 nights in that cold weather! Anyway, I am not big into trekking mountains, it was never really my thing either. I love nature, interesting archeological sites with ancient history and so, Machu Pichu was great and I pretty much spent most of the day there. The architechture was quite interesting, lots of geometrical shapes in the buildings, did not see any arch though! The stairs were placed in many different locations in a very strategic way, you could possibly walk up and down all over Machu Pichu Ruins using those stairs and end of the day my body was aching pretty bad. Still it was worth and just two of the pain killers took off all my pain and only thing I remember now is the great memory of the site.
BTW, the train ride for coming back was quite interesting and there was a live fashion show in our car, it was the most random thing I have ever seen in a train but even the funny show by this guy with mask on was quite interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed the entertainment.
We got back to Cusco quite late that evening.
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