After getting up at 4am, greeted by a breakfast of fresh fruit salad, pancakes with caramel sauce, and a Birthday cake for Richard (he had his 28th Birthday at Machu Picchu!), we walked barely five minutes before the first checkpoint, where we had to queue in the cold sunrise, since it didnt open until 5.30.
Todays walk was generally easy, probably spurred on by the adrenaline of actually reaching the end - although the last staircase before the sun gate (the first view of Machu Picchu) was ludicrously steep, narrow, stone steps that burned our already exhausted legs.
Nevertheless, as you reach the top of those steps you can barely catch your breath as Machu Picchu emerges out of the mist below you, just as the postcards show. The complex is simply staggering - a 600 year old town built in the middle of nowhere, almost carved out of the mountain itself.
Entering the Machu Picchu complex itself, you suddenly realise there are tourists everywhere, almost all of whom had taken the bus up, rather than the gruelling hike we´d just done! After a brief rest stop, Luis, our guide, took us on a 2 hour tour around Machu Picchu, explaining all the highlights around the complex.
It isnt untl you start walking around that you actually realise the size and complexity of the buildings. Luis took us around all the major points of interest, explaining each in detail - apparently, MP is thought to have been a kind of university, where the most intelligent people of the empire gathered. However, it is also widely expected that MP was abandoned, unfinished, possibly due to the Incans believing that they had offended Pachymama (Mother Earth) - Machu Picchu is subsiding by 2mm a year, so when the walls started falling apart, the Incans panicked.
As we passed through a tight tunnel behind the Temple of the Condor, just minutes before the end of the tour, my camera decided to pack up. I´d had about 400 pictures, but the memory card decided to make them all disappear, bar 3. Luckily, I´d copied all the photos from before the Inca Trail onto my MP3 player, so I had backups, but I lost all the photos from the previous five days.
After an hour or so of free time at Machu Picchu, we took the bus down to Aguas Calientes, where we had lunch (20 Soles for three courses), before catching the train and another bus back to Cuzco.
Back in the hostel, the shower was truly delightful. Five days without a wash really builds up a desire to smell fresh again!
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