(silvena) Machu Picchu... I think when i was younger these two words meant something like ¨¨ the end of the world¨¨ to me. Seeing the real thing is really an experience in itself. We wanted to enjoy this amazing site away from the crowds, and believe me this is extremely hard to do with a ton of gringos in Peru all with one main destination - the Inca sacred place - machu Picchu!

As a preparation for the BIG SITE, we started out with a trip to the Sacred Valley of the Incas, along the Urubamba River and saw several sites on the way. They are all built on mountain tops and overlooking some gorgeous views. Here is a view from the Inca site in Pisac, several km away from Cusco. View image

And a familiar face among the ruins :) View image

And here is what we saw carved in the rocks across - an Inca head View image

At the end of the Sacred View image

At the end of the Sacred Valley of the Incas, we reached Aquas Calientes - a small village, the last on the train line before the top. Even though it was dark, the mountains were awe inspiring since we had to lift our heads quite up to see the tops somewhere over us and the roar of the Urubamba river (which is the fastest and strongest river i have ever seen) added to the feeling of mother nature being the sole ruler of this place.

We managed to overcome our exhaustion and woke up at 5am and headed to the bus which was to take us up the steep 8 km. The road formed a serpent up a mountain and the view towards the misty tops accross the Canyon which the Urubamba formed were marvelous. View image

From about 6am to 11am we did kind of have the place for ourselves (there were just some Inca Trail survivors in addition to us. The Inca Trail would have taken us 4 days to walk and we did not have this time, but i can just imagine how one can feel walking for 4 days the old Inca route and arriving on a misty morning to this stunning place on the top of the mountain.) View image

Machu Picchu of course has an amazing history and is said to have never been found by the Spanish when they conquered Peru at the time. It lay there undisturbed by tourists until the early years of the 20th century.

The city took 100 years to be built and archeologists still argue how many people did it house. One thing which we easily felt is that everything in the Incas´ life was connected to nature, contemplating and phylosophysing, observing the movement of the sun and moon and capturing the shadows in some absolutely intricate architectural wonders. View image

In the morning, we really could feel the mystery of this place, many parts of it still covered by mist, View image and slowly, bit by bit it was revealing itself to us. View image Here is a picture from the angle which usually us seen on the postcards View image

Soon busses started to arrive in mass around 10 and pour hundreds of tourists at which point we left back to Aquas Calientes. Again, we werevery lucky with the weather, as it started to rain just before we boarded our train back to Cusco. View image View image

We did not see much of Cusco unfortunately (here is a picture of the city in the morning View image), as the next day we were flying to Lima, but in the few hours we had in the mornign, we observed (actually almost participated in since we were sitting on the stairs just in front of the main podium with official guests) a demonstration of Cusco and is neighbours in support of the police force in Cusco!!!!!???? View image

These two hours watching the parade brought back memories from years ago when in my primary school I marched with the brass band dressed in a uniform at our 1 May manifestations. I am not sure how voluntary this event was, or what was behind its organization but for more than 2 hours, hundreds of school children, workers, and simple inhabitants of communities around Cusco, dressed in their daily clothes and many women carrying their babies on their backs as we saw them all around Peru, made an amazing effort to MARCH in front of the podium. Their faces were so serious and so tense, it was at the same time a little bit funny and very endearing. View image

We arrived in Lima in the late afternoon, and could just get a short glimpse of one of its fanciest neighbourhoods situated on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific! It was difficult to remember that we were still in Peru. This neighborhood with its highrises with views from apartments which are probably stunning, with its flashy malls and restaurants, was worlds apart from where we were just ours ago...

All in all, we LOVED Peru! Even though wee had some frustrating fights with a self proclaimed travel agent, most of the people and the county as a whole left us with a feeling of warmth and kindness. We rushed through only the most important places in Peru, and i am sure there is more to see, so until next time! :)

I am writing this entry from Venezuela but more about this, soon.
Cheers to everyone!
Michal and Silvena