The Mysteries of Machu Picchu

For some unknown reason, the responsibility of writing a blog entry has been passed to myself - Jack – the youngest nephew. This confuses me as much as you, however we all know Andy and Liza well enough to know that it´s simply laziness on their part.

Ian and I have arrived all too suddenly to our final full day in Peru, and before I divulge the manic week that we have had, a massive thank you is in order to the ´oldies´(as Ian so nicely describes them) for giving us the opportunity of a lifetime out here, and giving us two of the best weeks of our life.

For those that know me may be somewhat confused as to why I´m being so nice – and no, I´m not that cheesy and I´m not drunk – but there is a nephew of the day competition that has ran throughout the holiday and today I am in hot contention with Stan (The soft toy mascot) – the unbeaten champion over the two week holiday. Fingers crossed!

Machu Picchu… One of the 7 wonders of the world, unbelievably fascinating, mystical and generally amazing (I would use the word immense but I've been charged with a 1 Sole tax per use due to my overuse of it).  It is almost impossible to get to! You can see why the Spanish never found it in the 1500s as it takes days of planning and effort to be rewarded with such sights.

The last blog left you in Cusco. The night was spent treating ourselves to a luxurious dinner in a steakhouse down the road, in anticipation of the day to come. We also managed to have a nice look round the town, with a couple hours alone time to take in the sights and buy souvenirs. 

 Yet another procession.... hardly a day goes past without one! (Purple by Andy)

Tuesday came and went very quickly, with a 5am wake-up call we made our way down the road to be picked up – we then waited an hour. It appears to be a custom in Peru that you cannot be on time, maybe it's a law we are unaware of, who knows?

The travel details of this trip aren't incredibly interesting. But after a 7 hour bus journey and a 3 hour walk we found ourselves in Machu Picchu Town, where we stayed the night in preparation for another early morning.

The walk was very scenic and interesting to say the least. We followed the railway track from start to finish and was very peculiar at some points. 

Not for the first time, actually more like the 5^th or 6^th, we woke up to the darkness of 5am and joined the hundreds of people already queuing up to get the bus to the lost land of the Incas. Buses left every 3 minutes or so, and so we weren't left in the cold for too long. Yet more queuing and too many steps for that time of the day and we arrived at what is the pinnacle of the trip.

I actually find it impossible to put into words just how great everything was about Machu Picchu – immense maybe?? It is best to let the pictures do the talking... 

For perhaps the first time ever we managed to get a nice picture of the four of us. 

You can't take me anywhere! I've been trying to explain the concept of a 'selfie' all week - again, actions speak louder than words.

Absolutely stunning.

Not too happy with this mug shot being put online for all to see, but what the uncle & auntie says goes apparently!

An interesting story of the 'Hitching post of the sun' which was used essentially as a sundial and used to be much larger. However a TV company dropped a very heavy camera on it in 2000 when trying to film an advert and broke it.

Amazingly enough both Ian and I ran into friends on this trip - what are the chances? This is Ian with his friend Hannah.

After 4 takes of trying to get a nice photo together this had to do - oh dear!

A stone hinge.... a bit of a novelty!

Andrew and Liza were particularly interested in the stone work used by the Incas. I will admit it is quite impressive.

1 of hundreds of terraces seen on the day

Pretty.

I then tried to teach the folks about the concept of 'photobombing' where someone tries to ruin the photo by pulling faces in the background.

Liza was a very good student.

This was our favourite Llama, not too intimate I hope?

We can pretend that this picture isn't staged - we'd be lying. It's still pretty awesome though.

The trip wore us out so much that I managed to sleep for the majority of the journey home - I'm not sure how much the others slept however, they seemed much more groggy!

This brings us to today, Thursday. Yet another early morning of 6am (considered to be a lay in somehow!) in anticipation of white water rafting and cycling. Surprise surprise the lift from the hotel was late, and organisation wasn't the best meaning we were restricted to a day of white water rafting instead (neither Ian or I complained as the manic 2 weeks caught up with us and exhaustion/illness starting to kick in).

When we were eventually picked up (with Ian bemoaning the fact he could have had another hour and a half in bed) we took a 2 hour minibus ride to the river in the Sacred Valley. None of us had ever done this before and I speak for everyone when I say it was amazing! It was the perfect challenge, not too difficult, not too easy. We rafted with some really nice people and even had our own personal photographer; Check out these action shots...