We arrive at Aguas Calientes around 9.30pm. It's dark and busy with people trying to find their way. We exit the train station gates through a gauntlet of people shouting and holding name signs. There is chaos. Towards the end of the gauntlet we find a board with Andrew's name and a x2 sign. Phew. The sign holder guides us to our hotel and then advises us on how to get to Machu Picchu and the best times to set off. Our room is simple but nice and backs onto a roaring river. The windows don't shut properly so the sound of the roar is with us all night. All night for us is not much as we are up at 3.30am and set off at 4am to get to the first gates for Machu Picchu. It's odd to get up so early and see many other presumably sober people on the streets donned with torches and heading the same way as us. We step to it and, making sure no one over takes us, frog march for 25 minutes to the 1st gate. Although we made good time and there are only a few people there before we gradually get moved back in the queue as it seems the people here don't queue. Although they don't like when you stand in front of them. Flippin' get up earlier then! The 1st gate is opened at 4.50am and it's dog eat dog as we all quickly march up the steep hillside. If anyone starts to slow they are quickly overtaken. A few times the way forward was not clear and so the lead people go the wrong way and disappointingly have lost vital places in the stream of speed walkers. It's very humid and warm so we are all sweating and puffing heavily from the effort. I am determined that I will get there and no one will over take me. We keep telling our selves that the 2nd gate will be just around the next bend. It's impossible to say as it's still dark and the path ascends steeply up through dense jungle. After 45 minutes of intense competitive speed walking we reach the 2nd gate. Relief and our efforts have paid off. I arrive as the 1st lady and in 7th place in total and Andrew is 8th. We are both wet through with sweat and humidity and my cheeks are as hot as the sun. It's 6.05am and so we have 25 minutes to wait for the gates to open. There are guards showing people where to stand. Happily for me I watch the guards try to control the queue jumping as much as they can. I decide that if 10 people push in in front of me I will stand at the front. We're Briitish and we queue! The buses from Aguas Calientes start to drop people off and its' getting busy. At 6.25am a man comes down the queue to see if we would like to go up Wayna Picchu and at what time. We get a stamp for the 10-11am slot. Hurray! This was the reason for the rush. Only 200 people are allowed up the mountain twice a day. The first slot is at 7-8am but there is normally low cloud at this time and our tour of Machu Picchu runs from 7.45am. The best time to go is at 10-11am when the cloud has lifted. We go through the gates and walk into the grounds of Machu Picchu. Before reaching Machu Picchu I was a little worried that I wouldn't find it special after seeing so many other great places on our trip but I had little to worry about. As we arrive the setting for Machu Picchu was spectacular with steep green mountains all around and cloud interwoven between them. We reached a high point of the ruins to get a good view of all around. The view lasted about 2 minutes until dense cloud came in. We sat waiting for the cloud to clear and listening to the rambunctious sparrows that bobbed about singing or shouting to each other right next to the people either on the floor or surrounding walls. After 30 minutes of sitting patiently waiting for the cloud to move to no avail we decided to get a warm drink from the cafe. This being Machu Picchu aka Tourist Capital of Peru they know how to hit you where it hurts with expensive hot drinks... as if the entry ticket is not enough at $45 (USD) per person and as we are on the topic of costs the bus down from Machu Picchu was nearly $4 one way. They even charge for you to use the loo. This all adds up to a lot of money, especially in Peru and they reckon that 2000-3000 people visit a day, that's a fortune! So we couldn't but wonder where is all the money going. Anyway back off my soap box... the hot chocolate was just what the doctor ordered especially as it had started to rain. We sat guessing how much the Machu Picchu hotel would cost for a night whilst we waited for our guide to show up. Just in case you are interested in a night in the Sanctuary Hotel at Machu Picchu the cheapest room is about $850. Eeek!

Our guide with the blue flag arrived and we let him know that Andres Platts x2 was here. After a few minutes our guide announced that he doesn't speak English and leaves us to wait for a guide with a red flag. A short quirky oriental guy who reminded me of an adult version of the Chinese boy from the film Goonies "fifty dollar bill". We head up to the high point of the ruins close to where we had sat earlier as this was to give us a great view of the city. The cloud was still very dense and we couldn't see anything. Our guide spent an hour going over the history of Machu Picchu, how it was re-discovered by Hiram Bingham from Yale University and how Yale University has still not given back the Machu Picchu artifacts it took on a 18 month loan some 100 years ago. The story from this guide was that only the select intelligent few were chosen to live at Machu Picchu and the city was built by the Inca people paying their taxes. The taxes were not paid by money but by 3 months hard labour per year helping to build the city. Sounds better then being killed as a stonemason slave.

As we wandered around Machu Picchu the cloud gradually lifted so we could see the city in it's entirety. It was pretty amazing. It soon came time for us and another couple Tim & Sally to take advantage of our amazing 10-11am stamp and go up Wayna Picchu. When looking at the typical photo of Machu Picchu with the city in the for ground and the two mountains immediately behind the city Wayna Picchu is the tallest mountain on the left. This is the place important visitors were believed to have come to see when visiting the city. Hope they had a good head for hights! Some of the steps towards the top were very steep and very exposed and not just once did I wonder what the hell I was doing up there and why I had bothered to get up so early and race up for this terror. Towards the very top I left Tim, Sally and Andy to a gentle exposed rock climb to the summit. I didn't mind. I had a great view from where I was and along with being knackered from the day so far I had scared myself enough. On the way back into Machu Picchu it started to rain so any ideas of sitting on a nice grassy slope near some llamas to take it all in had gone. Tim, Sally, Andrew and I decided that it was lunch time so headed for a bus back to Aguas Calientes for a tasty menu del dia. After lunch Andrew and I went to relax in the thermal baths that gives Aguas Calientes it's name. Wandering back through the streets we bumped into Tim and Sally again and found a great happy hour of 4 for the price of 1!! During our 2nd beer I realised our train was leaving in 15 minutes so we hastily left and ran through the streets to narrowly jump onto our train back to Ollantaytambo where we go through the gauntlet of name boards and shouting again. A girl with our name (Andres x2) repeatedly shouts for us even after we had announced we had arrived several times. Finally we are taken to the waiting bus for Cusco. It's over booked but we are on and we are not moving from our seats. Back in Cusco for 11pm we have a cheese burger dinner at McDonalds and head back to the hostel. A very long but good day!