The first bus up to Machu Picchu leaves Aguas Calientes at 5:30am. I'm not on it. Nor am I on the second. There is a giant queue of around twelve bus loads, containing around 500 people who are waiting to get up to the ruins before dawn, and ironically, the crowds. Hawkers are pushing their goods to the crowd, you can buy almost anything from an SD memory card, to a water holder, to a piece of cake. The reason I'm in the queue is that I want to climb Wayna Picch...

Cusco was originally designed to take the shape of a puma, which, along with the condor and the snake is a sacred animal for the Incas. Today I'm walking down its backbone, the Avenue del Sol, to pick up some extra supplies for the trail which starts on Wednesday. I manage to pick up a flashlight and some hybrid glove-mitten things, complete with the obligatory llama design. The key Incan ruin around Cusco is Sacsayhuaman (pronounced something like "sexy w...

The plane takes off through the thick ocean cloud that blankets Lima most of the year round. After around 15 minutes the high Andean mountains begin to poke through and the cloud clears. The floor below looks close, probably because it is; the plateau is at around 3000m above sea level. Cusco airport is small, just a luggage belt, a couple of tour desks, and a stall offering free oxygen. The lack of air is noticeable, and the usual airport rush to the baggage re...