The sunny day yesterday seemed too good to be true. It rained most of the night and so when it was time to wake up, Erick came to the tent suggesting that we reconsider options to avoid a probably very middy and slippery trail to llactapata and aguas calientes. It seemed that I was the only one still motivated enough but we said we would sleep an extra hour and see if the rain stopped. One hour later it was not raining anymore so I started to get ready to go hiking with Erick while the others were going to take a bus with the cook to our lunch place. I was really eager to visit the small inka ruins of llactapata and see the backside view of machu picchu. All of a sudden Nonna decided to join, and then Beatrice and Max too. The hike turned up to be very nice, with very little mud, a lot of coffee plantations, some parakeets, a suspension bridge too shaky to be cross able by mules, and a lot of cloud forest. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see machu picchu across the valley from llactapata (nice ruins barely excavated from the jungle), but we arrived at the hydroelectric train station without any trouble. From there we all decided to hike the remaining 12km to aguas calientes (also called machu picchu pueblo) instead of waiting for the train. Nonna set a very fast pace, passing multiple groups and all off us followed, as it started to rain heavily. We didn't stop much, reaching aguas calientes in 2hours, completely soaked. There we were definitely back to civilization, with a decent hostel, a hot shower, and a celebration dinner with pisco sour. I surprised Nonna with the desert: a birthday cake that was unexpected and delicious!
We went to bed early to prepare for a morning visit to machu picchu!
JN