Machu Pichu

While the rest of my tour was slaving away on the inca trail, I was having a great time in Cusco. Machu Pichu is the highlight in terms of Inca stuff to see, and its pretty much as good as it sounds.

Statue of an Inca in Agua Calientes, the town where I caught a train to Machu Pichu from. The statue is impressive, but in real life the Incas came in two flavours... the short peasanty ones, and the big royal ones with crazy heads (They were big because they got all the best food and they had freaky heads because they practiced cranial deformation). I went to a museum in Cusco were they had some skulls of Inca royalty... they looked like alien heads. When the royal incas were born, they had two wooden boards squishing their heads, so that it would elongate unaturally. Oh, and they were all inbred...

Little girl playing with her hoop.

I got to the first train to Machu Pichu to see the sun rise over the ruins. It was honestly amazing. there were hardly any tourists there at that time and it was dark. Then, as the sun rose, you could make out the outline of the ruins, and the city would appear from the clouds. It was really mysterious, and a vastly different feel to when it was bright daylight and the place was overrun with people.

The ruins as the sky cleared.

Wandering around the ruins.

Llamas just hanging out in the main square.

Spanktacular mountains.

My favourite people from my motley tour group. We're all looking a bit tired because technically we all finished the inca trail. Well, I just walked up the last little bit of it and walked back down to Machu Pichu which is still finishing it. Honest.