I am looking cheerful for the time of day - our alarms woke us at 4am!

The cup and saucer vine we notices growing close to Machu Picchu - we grow these as a tender annual at home!

The glorious panoramic view was taken from the train on the highlands above Cuzco.  The track follows the Urubamba River through magnificent scenery.

Our train terminated up the track as the bridge into the station was washed away, we completed the last few hundred metres on foot.

The city was built between 1460 and 1470 by Pachucuti Inca Yupanqui, an Incan ruler.

Machu Picchu is comprised of approximately 200 buildings, most being residences, although there are temples, storage structures and other public buildings. It has polygonal masonry, characteristic of the late Inca period.

Machu Picchu is integrated into the landscape. Existing stone formations were used in the construction of structures, sculptures are carved into the rock, water flows through cisterns and stone channels, and temples hang on steep precipices.

About 1,200 people lived in and around Machu Picchu, most of them women, children, and priests. The buildings are thought to have been planned and built under the supervision of professional Inca architects. Most of the structures are built of granite blocks cut with bronze or stone tools, and smoothed with sand. The blocks fit together perfectly without mortar, although none of the blocks are the same size and have many faces; some have as many as 30 corners. 

Few people outside the Inca’s closest retainers were actually aware of Machu Picchu’s existence. Before the Spanish conquistadors arrived, the smallpox spread ahead of them. Fifty percent of the population had been killed by the disease by 1527. The government began to fail, part of the empire seceded and it fell into civil war. So by the time Pizarro, the Inca’s conqueror, arrived in Cuzco in 1532, Machu Picchu was already forgotten.

Here is Mum with the famous ruins behind her.

Bingham was searching for Vilcabamba, which was the undiscovered last stronghold of the Incan empire. When he stumbled upon Machu Picchu, he thought he had found it, although now most scholars believe that Machu Picchu is not Vilcabamba. Machu Picchu was never completely forgotten, as a few people still lived in the area, where they were "free from undesirable visitors, officials looking for army ‘volunteers’ or collecting taxes", as they told Bingham.

Mum is standing in front of the main entrance into Machu Picchu.

The houses had steep thatched roofs and trapezoidal doors; windows were unusual. Some of the houses were two stories tall; the second story was probably reached by ladder, which likely was made of rope since there weren’t many trees at Machu Picchu’s altitude. The houses, in groups of up to ten gathered around a communal courtyard, or aligned on narrow terraces, were connected by narrow alleys. At the centre were large open squares; livestock enclosures and terraces for growing maize stretched around the edge of the city.

The Incas planted crops such as potatoes and maize at Machu Picchu. To get the highest yield possible, they used advanced terracing and irrigation methods to reduce erosion and increase the area available for cultivation.

This millipede was about six inches long (about 15cm).

As the winter solstice approached, when the sun seemed to disappear more each day, a priest would hold a ceremony to tie the sun to the stone to prevent the sun from disappearing altogether. The other intihuatanas were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors, but because the Spanish never found Machu Picchu, it remained intact. Mummies have also been found there; most of the mummies were women.

No pictures of this amazing place can do it justice - it is truly amazing.  The ruins are located at 8000 feet with a near vertical drop each side, with 360 degree views of green mountains and deep valleys.  The Gate of the Sun, above the city, leads to an Inca road, which for the more energetic, provides a hiking trail which eventually reaches Cuzco.

The railway tracks and river look tiny from this elevated position.

After a long wait in the railway station we eventually were escorted back up the track to board our train for the long journey back to Cuzco.

On the way we were entertained by the train staff dressed up in these bright costumes - we have no idea what they were doing but it was fun to watch!

We were disgorged from the train at a station above Cuzco and taken back to our hotel in a minibus. This was rather a relief as it takes the train some time to descend the steep hillside on the switch backs.