CUZCO: the world's navel

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After Arequipa and Colca I can say that the acclimatization phase is completed; the risk of sorocchi is now very low. But of course I will keep drinking the good Coca tea as long as I'm above 3.000 meters high.

The trip to Cuzco on Thursday was easy and fast. The flight was scheduled for boarding at 6:50am and passengers were requested to be at the airport 2 hours earlier. A bit disapointing was to find out that the airport only opens at 5am, so I had to wait 2min in the taxi (we were "late").

 The first day was spent in Cuzco, visiting the city center and doing the arrangements for the next days.

On Friday I left Cuzco at 8am with a Tour that visited the Sacred Valley and ended in Ollantaytambo.

From Ollantaytambo I took the 7pm train to Aguas Calientes, a very turistic town just next to the way up to Machu Picchu .

I spent the night in Aguas Calientes.  At 7am all people visiting the ruins met at the main square with their respective tour guide. It was overcasted and looked like it would rain. Around 9am we were in the ruins and started the guided part of the tour. The fog was very dense and you couldn't seen any of the landmarks the guide was mentioning. I felt sorry for the people visiting Machu Picchu for the first (and probably only) time and not seeing much.

          

The guided tour completed at 10:30 and the most interesting part started for me: the way up to the Huayna Picchu, the higher mountain that we all know from the traditional Machu Picchu photo. It was still foggy and even rainy. It took me about 2 hours to reach the summit, meeting people from everywhere n this planet, all in gut mood, trying to stay motivated for what seen to be a nonsense. But the weather slowly improved and we could see the ruins with all its mistic.

 
By the time I reached the summit it was foggy again but it didn't matter anymore. We had seen the ruins from the top and the whole atmosphere was very nice.

The way back is not free of new impressions and challenges. Just look at the slippery steps below ...

At the end the fog cleared and by the time I was back in the ruins we had a clear view of all that what our guide was explaining in the morning and nobody could see. I was posting something in whatsapp when Keiko, a japanese tourist made this photo.

and here my own panorama photo of Machu Picchu with the Huayna Picchu mountain in the background.

This was my 5th visit to Machu Picchu and the one I liked the most. Staying in Aguas Calientes for 2 nights makes a trendous difference; one can enjoy a full day in the ruins with enough time in the afternoon, after the big turist crowd is gone.