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The last 3 days I´ve been in the area famous for Machu Picchu, which is as amazing as it´s described. It was the one area I wasn´t looking forward to visiting because it´s so touristy, but it was really worth the visit.

It´s up high in the mountains, and although Machu Picchu itself is a little lower in altitude, I´m in Cusco at the moment and it´s 3,000m above sea level, and I´ve had a nasty headache all night. I think it´s a touch of altitude sickness. I have some tablets from my doctor to combat this, and so now I´ve taken them. They´re diuretics and they´re making me pee more than I knew I could.

This morning I meet up with Kaj as he´s flying into Cusco from Lima, and we´re heading into the jungle for 7 days. More mosquitos, humidity and cold water showers. Yay. I´ve bought a silly Peruvian hat to meet him with, and some rainbow gay gloves too. It´s cold enough to wear these items in Cusco! See the hat on the right - well mine is a bit more colourful than this!

Our first day into the area was in a charming town hardly anyone goes to called Ollantaytambo. Coral and I both really loved this town. We walked into the Plaza de Armas for dinner and found a little restaurant run by a couple. After we´d ordered the man walked out of the restaurant with a small animal that looked like a baby wombat. It was a satoni. I can´t find any images of this on the web, so it´s great we took lots of pics. It was only two months old, and Coral and I cuddled it the whole time we were at the restaurant. It was cold, so loved cuddles!

We took a train from here 1.5h to the town of Aguas Calientés which is also known as Machu Picchu town. We stayed at a cute hostel there called Rupa Wasi which was fantastic with the exception of the massive steps to get up to the hostel. We only did the steps twice. This hostel only had 4 rooms, so we had a lot of personal attention. A nice boy from the hostel named Orlando picked us up at the train station and carried all our bags to the hostel, including up the stairs. This was great because Coral and I could barely make it up the stairs. He got a big tip when he also brought our luggage back to the train station next day for our departure!

From Aguas Calientés it´s a 30min bus ride to Machu Picchu, which I was really worried about because of the switchbacks. I was certain I was going to see my desayuno (breakfast) again. On the right is a pic of the road from the top of the mountain. Luckily the drivers go really slow around the corners and I didn´t have anything to worry about.

First day in Machu Picchu we explored the main ruins and marveled at the architecture. The Peruvian governement are doing a fair bit of restoration too, so there are a couple of buildings that have thatches roofs using the original stone structure.

There are sooo many llamas here. Heaps. I thought we´d be lucky to see them, but no, they´re all over the ruins. In fact, I believe it´s how the grass stays nicely trimmed as they´re great lawn mowers. We were lucky enough to watch a baby llama frolicking with it´s mum, it was only 2 days old and snowy white. The mum was trying to coax it up some steps, but the baby just wouldn´t go.

Second day at the ruins Coral and I took a long walk up to the solar gate which is a 2 hour uphill walk on rocky paths. We also happened to take this walk in the rain, so had to go slowly because the path was trecherous. Once we got to the top the views would have been gorgeous if it wasn´t for all the cloud cover. All we could see in all directions was white fluffy cloud, but the walk itself was lovely. It was hard though, we ascended 1000ft during the walk, and I even took a pic of the sign to prove I´d been there!

On the way back downhill the cloud began to lift and we enjoyed great glimpses of the whole of Machu Picchu. It looked spectacular from the height we were at. This pic is similar to the occasional views through cloud cover we recieved.

I got great joy in telling hikers on the way down how far they were, as there is no signage or information telling you where you are on the track. I told one couple they were about one sixteenth of the way, and the first part of the track are hideously steep steps. I referred to them as a ladder, not steps at all. I also met the first Australians I´d met in South America on this track, one from the Gold Coast and two from Canberra. The Canberran couple said that being from Cairns I should be able to handle this humidity… it was about 10C and I´m shivering. There was NO WAY I could feel any humidity!

The train trip back to Cusco is 5 hours, and was beautiful because you get a slow look through villages and ruins on the sides of mountains. The villages are particularly interesting because people are dressed funny, and they wear amazingly colourful clothes for farmers. The ladies have a big backpack rug thing that they carry everything in; maize, coca leaves, straw, children.

Well off to the airport now to fly out to Puerto Maldonado. Won´t be near a computer for a week.