Machu Picchu is a mountain-top city built by the Incas – the people who ran a large South American empire until the Spanish turned up and did it better (and more violently by the look of it). There are two things which immediately struck me as odd. Firstly, this city is very nice but its on the top of a mountain in the middle of a cloud forest … not exactly well-connected. Secondly, despite all the emphasis on heritage and that the whole thing was lost under forest for a few hundred years and then rediscovered – this isn’t actually an ancient site and is in fact only about 550 years old. Which is old, but to a European, not that old.

The day we visited was very wet so although I have approximately the usual selection of photos, some of them are quite eerie, with layers of cloud appearing at funny heights and giving an illusion of the whole city levitating in the mist.

We got absolutely soaked on this trip, and since we’d stayed overnight in Ollantaytambo, quite a lot of our stuff got very wet as well. Happily this means I also have have the tourists-in-rainbow-coloured-ponchos photo again.

Its an absolutely awe-inspiring sight (did you know “awful” at one time meant “full of awe”?), and although the site is quite large, we did brave the rain and explore pretty much all of it. We had a guided tour and then some free time afterwards and despite the inclement weather it was a stunning place to spend an afternoon. Also, we’re British – proper raincoats, sensible shoes, quick-dry trousers and a packed lunch are an essential part of our kit, even if its sunny in the morning!

There are a few more pictures in the flickr set for the day in Machu Picchu if you are interested, I tried but the photos really don’t do it justice.

The trains themselves are first-class, 1920s style affairs with armchairs for seats and silver service.

The train was in a time warp, with organised events (live music, pisco sour distribution (at 10am!), and even a fashion show of wildly expensive knitwear), and silver service performed by synchronised teams of waiters who leaned to either side of the aisle in time with one another. The food was nice but the dancing servers reduced me to giggles every time they arrived.

The views were spectacular, as we left Cusco and travelled through the Andes and across the Altiplato – a large (HUGE, this was a 10 hour train journey) plateau between the two sides of the Andes – and along to Lake Titcaca. The whole trip is at altitude – like a normal landscape, but 3000 to 4000 metres above sea level!

The train lines in Peru are kind of exciting in that they often run along streets and are completely unenclosed. There are animals, people, vehicles and who knows what else all along the tracks, its madness! In Juliaca (a place just outside Puno), there were lots of little stalls with bits of car parts and so on, seriously a different world. There are more photos in my flickr set for this part of the trip.

One thing I wasn’t warned about (and yes, its obvious, but didn’t occur to me in time) is that everything kind of explodes when it suddenly finds itself under so much less atmospheric pressure. My lip gloss was spectacularly pink, sticky and sparkly when I took the lid off and it all flowed straight out of its tube. Even more fun was my rollerball deodorant which popped the ball off across the bathroom floor when I took the lid off it :)

We had most of a free day in Cusco before heading off on our next trip, and then another day when we got back. Its a nice city, with plenty of shopping and restaurants around, and people were really helpful with questions about things like stamps. When we returned a few days later, we visited the Sun Temple and also fitted in some excellent shopping. I even commissioned a bespoke bag, from a man surrounded by bags, with a sewing machine and (I discovered) his suppliers’ stall was just across the aisle. I demanded colour and shape, paid about 6 GBP for it, and was able to pick it up in 2 hours – amazing service!

From Cusco, we went into the Sacred Valley, which is a very fertile and green place (this is rainy season). We’re so close to the equator here that its easy to forget that even the lowest points in this landscape are at dizzying altitude, everything grows just fine. Our trip took us via Corao and Pisaq markets (no photos of these, I think I was too busy shopping. I bought all the usual things like jumpers, scarves and presents – and 12 balls of shocking pink llama wool. From there we went up to Ollantaytambo.

Ollantaytambo is a nice little town, and also the name of an Inca site. We visited the site first, its very steep – and when we were there it was raining and I was very amused by the convoys of rainbow-coloured ponchos people had bought from the street sellers!

While in Ollantaytambo, we stumbled over Hearts Cafe which is a great social project as well as an excellent cafe. We got a proper English afternoon tea (very welcome at 4pm after a long day) and also ordered packed lunches which we picked up the next morning for our trip to Machu Picchu.

More photos are in my flickr set for this trip – plenty more of these to come though so keep checking back.

It was an early start for our flight to Puerto Maldonado, followed by three hours trip upstream by boat. I’ve never been anywhere like this before so it was pretty impressive. We saw Capybaras from the boat, and also got quite wet when it rained (we’re British, we just put on our raincoats and weren’t bothered).

The lodge itself was basic but fine. I’m a fussy eater and still had no trouble getting enough that was edible, which was great. We went out on the river again at night, and the following morning had another early start to walk to Lake Cococha. It was a 5k walk in wellies, through bits of jungle and swamp, not too hot on the way out but we walked both ways at a very fast pace so the walk itself wasn’t much fun. The lake, however, was breathtaking. I’m not much of a traveller so this is probably the most remote place I’ll visit in my life.

While at the lodge, I noticed lots of little metal bottle tops had been nailed to the floor (if you’re not laughing yet, that’s fine, skip to the next paragraph) to stop the steps getting slippery. Here are the bottle tops, followed by what a blue and yellow macaw thought of having bottle tops nailed to the floor!

More photos in my Tambopata set on flickr if you’re interested