Hola from Machu Picchu!

Saturday saw me, Clare and Annie get up early to catch the 7am train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. Its a 4hr train journey and now too bad a journey. On arrival we wandered through the concrete sprawl that it is these days. when I was here years ago it was shanty city but now anymore. It has a funky sort of feel, lots of chilled bars and shops.

We wandered up through the town to the hot springs. Flippy eck I'd forgotten my bikini but not to worry they rented them there! NOT ON YOUR FLIPPIN LIFE would I RENT a swimmin cozzy!!! YUCKSTER MUCKSTER! Can you just imagine!!!!! So, ooooh what a shame I was unable to join them and boy was I glad when I saw the state of them. Clare and Annie being intrepid travellers decided to give it a go. I sat on the terrace, watched the world go by whilst they changed and went and sat in the slimey minging water!!! On return, Clares cozzy had turned brown! YUCK! We were all on the terrace when the other girls wandered up (Daisy/Lily/Jess and Harriet). We all wandered back through the town and headed to our hostel. As we walked up the stairs Annie said, "have we got a room here Daisy".....GOOD QUESTION, we didnt! They'd been given away!!! Daisy, our rep hadnt actually booked them properly for us! After a slight panic Daisy communicated with the "receptionist" and they fortunately did have a room which Daisy and I could share so we took it at the extortionate rate of 20 Sols each per night! That's a total rip off, only 3.50GBP but that was wayyyy more than we were planning to spend! Hey, I'm a traveller on a tight budget!

Anyway, after having a scream in the room exploring the GORGEOUS en-suite we headed out for a meal and get together.

It was an early night as we were up the next morning at 4.30am to get the first bus up to Machu Picchu. We all arrived at the bus terminal bleary eyed but it was worth being the first group through the gates. Soooooo good to be up there and there be hardly any people around! We all just loved it. Second time around it wasnt so awsome but still a wonderful sight. We decided to walk up Wannu Pichu (the mountain pictured at the back of the ruins)! Boy was it flippin hard! I was TOTALLY exhausted but made it to the top, eventually! The views were amazing! We had a picnic at the top before the long walk back down (which was really hard on the knees). At the bottom I was totally exhausted, the most knackered I've EVER felt in my life! We stopped for a drink and then walked the hour long walk back down to the Machu Picchu town. I was sick on the way down, think it was just total exhaustion. We arrived back at the hostel to pick up our rucksacks and I was majorly sick AGAIN! :o( Just wanted to go to bed and sleep, you all know how much I like my sleep, being up at 4.30am was not good!

Annie and I had tickets on the earlier train (3.45pm) so after they had lunch (I couldnt face a thing) we headed off to the station. I was sick twice before the train arrived and again on the train (unfortunately when it was going through a tunnel! I know I know, you didnt wanna hear that!

The train journey was so bizarre, there had been no tickets available on the cheaper backpacker train so we had to go on the 'posh one'! I climbed aboard and immediately wanted to sleep, they brought me a blanket and I nodded off a few times. Half way through the journey we had a fashion show of alpaca wear! Yep...Annie was called up to model, she wore a lovely poncho with hood, we had a right larf! They tried to drag me up too but I was having none of it!

A little scary, they announced as we were arriving into Cusco to shut the windows and we found out why....kids stood on the sidings and chucked rocks at the windows, not stones but rocks!

We arrived safely into Cusco at 8.30pm, grabbed a taxi and headed home. I immediately went to bed and slept til 0930 the next morning. Felt better, albeit bad head/tum.

Took lots of photos but it takes so long to download them here I've just included a few.