Machu Picchu

After three good days weather, some glorious views and fascinating Inca site visits our luck ran out during our last night under canvass. We got up for breakfast just before 4am and left the campsite at daybreak in our waterproofs. Towards the end of the last 6km of the Inca Trail the rain eased briefly and we emerged over the hill through the Sun Gate.

In the distance through a break in the cloud we looked down on the citadel for the first time. But within minutes, like Brigadoon, it had vanished into the mist to the disappointment of those who had come so far on foot. Some were still less fortunate, arriving after the window in the weather and missing the view completely. With tired legs the bedraggled platoon of pilgrims plodded slowly downhill in increasingly heavy rain until finally we were close enough to see the citadel close up. Wow!

Day 1 - a brief respite from rain

We had dreamed of seeing the sunrise here but it was not to be and the walkers mostly melted away. Undeterred, Miguel began our tour as the rain pelted still harder. For more than an hour we explored the citadel, almost alone, even our companions having bailed out. We had got the unlikely outcome of seeing the main sites without the crowds but the surrounding scenery was lost in the cloud.

The citadel sits on a high steep sided promontory surrounded on three sides by a horseshoe bend in the Urubamba River, on a saddle-like piece of land between Wayna Picchu (young mountain) and the higher Apu Machu Picchu (old mountain). All around on the other side of the river are a ring of further mountains which creates a spectacular location suitable for a genuine wonder of the modern world. The citadel is hidden from view in every direction - no wonder the Spanish conquistadors never found it.

There are houses where the nobility lived, temples, many terraces for agricultural purposes and a host of other buildings all perfectly preserved after half a century except for the missing straw roofs. Every now and again one turns a corner and sees some remarkable detail of stonework and carvings - condors, puma, snakes and llamas - the sacred animals of the Incas. It is so captivating we stayed four hours in the rain trying to take it in before we descended the hill to find our hotel.

Disappointed only by the lack of views we decided we were too tired to go back the next morning. But when dawn broke and the sun was out we could not resist and took the chance to climb the mountain again. Sometimes there is a second chance to make a first impression and, bathed in sunshine, Machu Picchu did just that. We just sat and relaxed, drinking it in and then wandered round, all the time noticing more and more. Two days, two incredibly different moods.

Day 2 - what a contrast!

The Incas didn't write nor produce pictorial evidence of their culture like the Ancient Egyptians.  They managed to destroy enough of the trail from Cusco to conceal the citadel from the Spanish and so no one knows the true story or even it's name. Maybe it was the last stronghold of the last Inca king. Maybe it was ultimately abandoned because of disease. There are lots of theories of what happened before a ten year old boy took American Hiram Bingham there 100 years ago this year to find three families living in the overgrown citadel. That no one knows the true story just adds to the mystique of a place that might just be the most magical on Earth.