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Craig & Jills Round the World Trip
Today we got up at 4.30am to be picked up and taken to the train station for the 6am train. We were told at the station that the train journey may take longer than the standard 4 hours as locals were protesting further up the line. The train set off and zig zagged up the mountain side, going backwards and forwards as we changed tracks. We passed local neighbourhoods, were the houses are made of mud bricks, clinging to the hillside. Animals everywhere, especailly pigs and cattle. All the locals wave as you go by. The tgrain then desends into the sacred valley, and we got views to the snow capped mountains in the distance. Machu Pichu is 6000ft lower than Cusco, so it was downhill all the way. We stopped at a some village, at 8.40am, about an hour away from Machu Pichu. We then saw the riot police get off the train and head a few miles up the track to the protesters. Locals had blocked the track with themselves and huge rocks. They are protesting against the mayor who is taking all the money. We were told it could take anything from 20 mins to 2 hours to clear the track. 3 hours later we still hadnt moved. We were finally told we would have to go back to Cusco, as they had been unable to clear the track and they were threatening violence. So you can imagine everyones disappointment. The journey back seemed a lot longer. Fingers crossed we have rearranged to go on Thursday, clear track permitting. Other people arn't so lucky who are on holiday tours and obviously haven't the flexability like us. So please everyone keep fingers crossed that we get to go. Tomorrow we have arranged a private tour to some more inca ruins, the ones we should have been going to on Thursday. We will let you know if we reach the land of the incas! PS, they arn't actually called incas, inca is the name for the main king, but everyone else were called something else, but we cant rember what or how to spell it anyway!
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