We arrived at Aguascalientes last night around 10pm from Ollantaytambo by train. As it was night, we couldn´t see much. The market in Pisac was really nice to visit yesterday, as were the ruins of Urubamba. We did an enroumous amount of hiking and I took hundreds of photos. Our guide explained how the Incan fortifications were destroyed by the Spaniards upon their conquest. We ended our tour yesterday in Ollantaytambo which also had a massive amount of Incan ruins and terraces. Their architecture was quite amazing. We spent 4 hour in the town and then caught the train to Aguascalientes. We had the cheapest tickets on the train, but it wasn´t so bad. We met a young guy named James from England, a student of Chinese at Cambridge who has been traveling throughout South America for the last few months. He had many interesting stories to share – he has been robbed twice (both in Quito).
When we got to Aguascalientes we immediately arrived at out hostal and then went to bed as we were exhausted and had to get up early this morning at 4.45am. We had initiall yintended to hike to Machu Picchu from our hostal, but decided against it (I was way too tired), so we decided to take the bus for 18 soles. We were quite glad that we chose this option as the hike is incredibly difficult (we hiked to our hostal from Machu Picchu). We arrived at MP very early and found it absolutely amazing (especially at this hour with the rising sun and clouds). Pictures are insufficient to describe the majesty and splendor of this place – it is absolutely amazing. We spent hours touring the ruins and learning about the place and Incan culture.
We really enjoyed Machu Picchu and it was clearly the highlite of this trip. The hike back to our hostal was brutal, particularly since we hadnt eaten all day (it was too early to find anything when we left), and it is a LONG hike. To compound the difficulty, it started pouring rain a few kilometers from our destination, so we arrived soaked with no way to dry our clothes. When we returned to our hostal – we fell asleep exhausted for over 4 hours.