1. View over Cusco from our room at the Sweet Daybreak Hostal over Cusco 2. Yoga posing at the top of Putucusi 3. The ladders at Putucusi 4. Two plonkers in silly hats at Macchu PicchuCusco made me cry. We arrived in the rain after 12 hours on a nasty old bus from Bolivia, crammed ourselves into a taxi the size of a matchbox and then got driven around by a driver who didn´t know his arse from his elbow but refused to admit he was lost. We were then unceremoniously dumped on a street corner and told our hostel was ´up there´. Up meant up, and up, and up. There were no signs, it was dark, no-one was about to ask for directions and even when you´re fully acclimatised it´s no small matter lugging backpacks up steep steps at over 3500m. So I stopped and thought the best thing to do was have bit of a cry. But crying at altitude took me a bit by surprise. Rather than enjoying a little dribbly whimper, my sobs came out in huge, noisy, breathless, melodramatic gulps. Almost immediately the empty streets were filled with helpful people and rather than having a big dramatic cry in private I had an audience. How embarrassing. Mike shrank into the shadows and pretended he didn´t know me. Still, it worked, and soon we were tucked up in our little room with cracking views of the city.
I don´t know who had the foresight to enforce this, but Cusco has uniformely lovely terracotta tiled rooves, so as dawn broke over the city we were treated to a lovely sight. We tumbled down the steps, dodged a few million Japanese tour groups and found an unashamedly touristy place for breakfast serving up a very un-Peruvian asparagus and poached eggs with roasted tomatoes. A town over run with rich American tourists and european honeymooners does have some benefits. We only had a day in the city so we raced around a fantastic museum filled with amazing ceramic exhibits with exciting titles such as ´a mythical representation of a potato´. Then we ran our fingers over some fine Inca masonry before tucking into some alpaca stew.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn for a four hour train ride up to Aguas Calientes, hopping off point for Macchu Picchu. The train was hideously late, but the time passed quickly as we were squashed into tiny seats opposite a lovely, quirky French couple. We dumped our bags and set off for a walk up Putucusi, a hill facing the ruins. But this was no ´walk´, and this was no ´hill´. We started off up some pretty steep steps before rounding a corner to find about 100m of vertical wooden ladders attached to a sheer rock face. Gulp. Hand over foot we slowly climbed upwards, rounded another corner and found... another 100m of vertical ladders. I think this the only time on this trip that bionic Mike has looked genuinly knackered. It was a hard, hard climb. Still, what better motivation than knowing that you have a view to Macchu Picchu at the top? We finally made it and sat atop a rock, completely on our own, and admired one of the world´s greatest man-made wonders.
At 4am the next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed, queued for the bus to the ruins, queued for the gates to open at 6am, and queued again for a ticket to climb Wayna Picchu, the lump you see in the background of the classic postcard shot of the city. Another thigh-burning climb, another eye-popping view. And, unusually for us, the sun shone, and shone.
The ruins were every bit as awe-inspiring as I imagined and even though there were crowds, there was also peace and space. Although I have seen so many images of Macchu Picchu it was not without some surprises. The cloud forest surrounding the ruins amazed me the most - wild strawberries nestle in the hedgerows, huge butterflies with iridescent wings that make them appear to pulse with light skip across the rocks, llamas graze on the terraces, humming birds dip in and out of purple flowers and lizards dart away as you walk. The Incas seem to have had a real talent for finding the most dramatic and magical spots imagineable and saying. ´I´ll have that for my kingdom, thank you very much´.
We spent a very long day exploring every nook and cranny and reluctantly left to get the train back to Cusco. By this time after spending the day hearing and speaking (badly) both Japanese and Spanish my brain was mush, and the poor central American couple opposite us were treated to sentences like ´of donde wa kimasu son are you?´.
It was all a bit much for one day, so as we returned to Cusco I thought I´d have a little cry.
I don´t know who had the foresight to enforce this, but Cusco has uniformely lovely terracotta tiled rooves, so as dawn broke over the city we were treated to a lovely sight. We tumbled down the steps, dodged a few million Japanese tour groups and found an unashamedly touristy place for breakfast serving up a very un-Peruvian asparagus and poached eggs with roasted tomatoes. A town over run with rich American tourists and european honeymooners does have some benefits. We only had a day in the city so we raced around a fantastic museum filled with amazing ceramic exhibits with exciting titles such as ´a mythical representation of a potato´. Then we ran our fingers over some fine Inca masonry before tucking into some alpaca stew.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn for a four hour train ride up to Aguas Calientes, hopping off point for Macchu Picchu. The train was hideously late, but the time passed quickly as we were squashed into tiny seats opposite a lovely, quirky French couple. We dumped our bags and set off for a walk up Putucusi, a hill facing the ruins. But this was no ´walk´, and this was no ´hill´. We started off up some pretty steep steps before rounding a corner to find about 100m of vertical wooden ladders attached to a sheer rock face. Gulp. Hand over foot we slowly climbed upwards, rounded another corner and found... another 100m of vertical ladders. I think this the only time on this trip that bionic Mike has looked genuinly knackered. It was a hard, hard climb. Still, what better motivation than knowing that you have a view to Macchu Picchu at the top? We finally made it and sat atop a rock, completely on our own, and admired one of the world´s greatest man-made wonders.
At 4am the next morning we dragged ourselves out of bed, queued for the bus to the ruins, queued for the gates to open at 6am, and queued again for a ticket to climb Wayna Picchu, the lump you see in the background of the classic postcard shot of the city. Another thigh-burning climb, another eye-popping view. And, unusually for us, the sun shone, and shone.
The ruins were every bit as awe-inspiring as I imagined and even though there were crowds, there was also peace and space. Although I have seen so many images of Macchu Picchu it was not without some surprises. The cloud forest surrounding the ruins amazed me the most - wild strawberries nestle in the hedgerows, huge butterflies with iridescent wings that make them appear to pulse with light skip across the rocks, llamas graze on the terraces, humming birds dip in and out of purple flowers and lizards dart away as you walk. The Incas seem to have had a real talent for finding the most dramatic and magical spots imagineable and saying. ´I´ll have that for my kingdom, thank you very much´.
We spent a very long day exploring every nook and cranny and reluctantly left to get the train back to Cusco. By this time after spending the day hearing and speaking (badly) both Japanese and Spanish my brain was mush, and the poor central American couple opposite us were treated to sentences like ´of donde wa kimasu son are you?´.
It was all a bit much for one day, so as we returned to Cusco I thought I´d have a little cry.
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