March 7th, 2006: Cuzco, Peru
Getting to Machu Picchu is quite the trip! There are no roads to Machu Picchu anymore (they have washed away), so the only way of getting there is on foot, or taking the train to a city called Aguas Calientes, and then boarding a bus for the trek up the mountain
thereafter. On the afternoon of the 6th we were informed that they were all out of backpacker class tickets but that we could return to the station at 5am the next morning to see if there were any available then. We woke up bright and early at 4:30 in the morning, took a cab to the train station and were upset to see a large sign saying they were still sold out of tickets. Not 
willing to give up that easy, we decided we might as well just ask...what harm could it do? Much to our surprise they said they did have two tickets available for us! We got our stuff packed up for the day trip and boarded the 6:15 train bound for Machu Picchu. We stayed right on schedule until suddenly the train came to a screeching halt. Unfortunately our train had a collision with a cow that had wandered onto the tracks, and it took them a few minutes before the tracks were cleared. The train takes about 5 hours to arrive in Aquas Calientes (plus however long it takes to remove a dead cow from the tracks). From there its another 25 minutes bus ride up the side of the mountain to the actual site of Machu Picchu. The bus makes the ascent along a very narrow road making hairpin turn after hairpin turn. Below are some of the many, many pictures we took of Machu Picchu. Although the journey to get there is fairly tedious it is well worth the time and effort. It is really an amazing sight! 
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