Machu Picchu

Hmmmm, we've been there, finally one of the highlights of this trip. Seeing Machu Picchu and walking in the valley that surrounds the Machu Picchu, we have so many beautifull pictures that this time it was really hard to make a selection so the amount is a bit larger than normal. Hope you do not mind!

The first pictures shows the group, consisting of the guide Rene, two French New Yorkers Matthieu and Philippe, and of course Birgit, Henk's sweety and Berend le Chacal. The journey was pretty rough from time to time, crossing a big tumultuous river with a cable car, two by two. Or small ridges with 60 meters of space underneath you. Or crossing a river, bare feeted, because our guide could not find a bridge in the night. Or finding a big tree on the railway, which had to be chopped into pieces with axes, due to the lack of a chain saw. We just climbed the tree and continued, but for the train people, well they almost cried. You just got to love it!!





Walking trough valleys we saw a lot of different fruit trees. We never knew that avocado grew on a tree, that bananas had a really big flower (unfortunatelly it opens up in the dry season, what a shame) We saw trees with oranges, citrons, papaya, sort of tomatos (but not the real ones), bananas, avocados and many more that for us were unrecognizable. Henk became really happy when he stumbled upon a bush or tree with coffee beans, pfff look at his face!



Something about our guide, Rene, or the French way for people familiar with Alo Alo.. Rrrrrrenee. Our conclusion of our guide was that he was not a guide, but the most friendly and helpfull Peruvian we met! His physical condition was not what you expect of a guide as you can see on the following pictures. We even lost him at a certain time, but a nice cup of Ron 'Rum', coca leaves and his increadible good spirit kept him going till the end where he just collapsed on his bed. Thanks Rene!!













Finally, a few pictures of Machu Picchu. This place as you can imagine is just amazing so telling about the detailes we will skip and just give some eye candy! Oh the Llama, the holy animal of the Inca's, was making fun of us.... but we did not care, we conquered the Machu Picchu, whow as Philippe always says (the man with his tongue hanging outside).







The trip we did was visible from the Machu Picchu, which made it more special. We came walking from the top along side the river and crossed the river to continue on the railway track. This same track brought us later from Aqua Calientes to NOT Urubamba, where Rene was waiting for us.... silly us!