The Machu Picchu Blog Tom: Tourist information, guides and the internet had, during our trip and before, given this UNESCO site a rather elevated level of expectation. The overwhelming amount of tourists has meant that UNESCO have had to step in and impose a 500 person per day entry limit (300 trekkers/200 others), and only 400 of those could climb WaynaPicchu (the mountain behind the settlement in the blog image). This, cou...

Tom: We are now 3360m above sea-level, and Nil has just recovered from a pretty nasty headache, and I´ve stopped wheezing. Well, I say wheezing, it was more like an attention-seeking cough. The good news is that we´ve finally sorted out our Machu Picchu trek for the 7th, after months of negotiating with our Peruvian tour company. One minute they´d booked us onto our trek a month too early, the next they were applying for a special permit on our behalf to do t...

Nil: We´ve had a rather successful day navigating our way round town by local transport. We jumped on this little rickety minivan, which stopped at a rather unassuming crossroads in the middle of nowhere to pick us up. We were crammed in with what felt like a hundred other people, who were friendly (bar the ´bus conductor´ if you can call her that!). So after getting off the bus, we got a bit lost in an area that looked like a market place with dusty streets ...

Tom: We´re in Peru!!! Another epic bus journey (20.5hours) from San Pedro de Atacama to Arequipa sees us within 200km of Cuzco, and Machu Picchu. The journey also saw our first land border-crossing since Loas/Vietnam back in March, and I have to say, South American crossings are far more pleasant/tolerant/organised than South East Asian ones. A vague trace of an orderly queue, a rather excellent taxi driver, and even a few curious smiles from the customs offici...