Day 9 - Peru - Aguas Callientas

Breakfast was at 6 am, we left at 6:30, then were at the train station in Ollanytaytambo just after 7 am. We were supposed to leave at 7:35 but the train was delayed by an hour, sigh.

The train cars were very nice and we had assigned seats. I didn't stay in mine much as I was busy taking photos of the views along the way.

The vegetation changed during the 90 minute ride and you could see we were entering the jungle zone. The mountains are quite dramatic, and it was strange to see small farms near the river that we followed.

When we arrived in Aguas Calientas, we went to get tickets for an afternoon visit to Machu Picchu. Only so many are available per day and we were in luck. They aren't cheap but we wanted to be able to see the place more than just once.

We stopped at a restaurant before we boarded the bus. Surprisingly, there are a lot of pizza places here and ours was cooked in a wood fired oven - very delicious.

The ride up was extremely cool. It's about a half hour ride and you climb and climb. Once in a while, you get great views of the river and valley below. When a bus meets another one on a particularly narrow section, one of them has to back up. There are switchbacks and the road is bumpy - great fun!

We got there about 1 pm and there were no line ups. There is a spot to stamp your own passport with a cool Machu Picchu stamp. Somehow I was elected to be the tour guide so I thought it best to climb first while we had energy then it would be downhill the rest of the way.

Haha! It was a gruelling walk up and we needed more than a few rest stops. Machu Picchu is magnificent from on high and I shot more photos than I needed to.

We went around the site very slowly which suited me fine. It was quite hot but thankfully there was a breeze. We stopped a lot, me to take pictures, while the other two I travelled with rested.

At one point I spotted some llamas (or were they alpaca?). As I rounded a corner, a mother llama was nursing her little one! So very cool to see that. There were several llama wandering throughout the site and it made for some iconic pictures.

As it turned out, the afternoon was a great time to go and by the time we left, the place was almost empty. It's an amazing place.

I wore sandals as my runners were too far away and I did just fine. It's the knees that were screaming. Also my insect repellent was back at the hotel. Some others lent me some but it didn't prevent me getting many, many itchy bites on my legs. I couldn't stop scratching til I put some Benadryl on my bites.

We were only there for about 3 and a half hours but it felt like much longer. Our hotel is very nice, but it's a long walk from the bus, uphill of course.

I wanted a little something from this place and found some cat placements as well as a gorgeous stone pendant. The Main Street is about 65 - 70% restaurants, most of which exist to sell pizza to tourists. We walked all the way down to the square. Unfortunately we had to walk all the way back up again.

We were too exhausted and not very hungry, so we stayed at the hotel for a bite instead of going out with the group.

I can't tell you how tired I am 😴