Makin much of Machu picchu

 We get picked up from our posh digs at 7 and get driven out along slum and Andes lined roads to the town of Olytambo(or something like that). We catch the train to Aguas Calientes. If you sat on the left side you got beautiful views of rivers and mountains but on the right(where we were) one looked out rock faces and rubbish dumps. It was not a quiet trip due to the constant raucous high volume babble from a certain national group.😡

We arrive at AC which is a bit of a shit hole town and are put on the bus with our guide, Raphael, to do circuit 2 of MP. Getting there was a harrowing experience along a pretty hairy road; the 2 words which came into my mind were "plunge" and "ravine". Raphael said the only times that buses would slip over the edge was when the road was wet-it was dry. One had the feeling not too much of the tourist dollar went into maintaining infrastructure.

 As much as I'd like to make a series of facetious comments about MP, in fact it was pretty special and spectacular. 

Tourists are now banned from going up this mountain because somebody once made a stick movie on top

We returned to AG by bus(still dry) and then to our crude digs.

The air up here is pretty thin and one gets quite short of breath following even moderate exertion like tying one's shoelaces!

I discovered recently a rare recording of the Inca national anthem. It is a wistful paen to a once proud nation whose only foibles was human sacrifice, embalming and burying children alive. Take a few moments to listen to this moving rendition: