Machu Picchu

There are no words to describe the awe of Machu Picchu. Renee and I visited the place yesterday and it was without question the highlight of my trip so far. We took the train to and from the site like my bro did which was a bit long, but well worth it. It was cloudy when we first got there around noon and you couldn´t really see Wayna Picchu (the big mountain behind the ruins in all the pictures - link below). But it started clearing up and Renee and I hustled through the ruins to try and get to Wayna Picchu before the 1pm cut off and we were successful. We were visitors #383 and 384 at 12:42pm - they close the gate to the mountain after 400 people, or at 1pm (whichever comes first). The climb was tough but the views were spectacular as most of the clouds cleared up for us, but some remained which added to the mystique of the ruins.

Machu Picchu is really a wonder, and I have the pictures to prove it (but still have not uploaded any - will try again soon). We explored the grounds for a couple hours after our climb and did not want to leave at the end of the day. It is an incredible place.

Machu Picchu w/ Wayna in the background (again, we climbed to the top of Wayna):

http://z.about.com/d/archaeology/1/0/_/B/machu_picchu1.jpg

Renee and I are now in Puno, Peru on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Very pretty. We had a exciting, adventurous, and surprisingly seamless trip here today. We showed up at the bus station in Cusco at 9:15 this morning and asked two companies about buses to Puno (a lot of the websites, just like the plumbing in Cusco, were not working last night or today), and we only found ones that departed late tonight. Then we walked up to another company I had heard of and found out they had a direct bus to Puno that just left at 9am. The woman behind the counter got all psyched up and told us she would pay for the cab for us to catch the bus and we could board it when we caught up. Was ridiculous, but it worked. She came with and it went great- we caught the bus in less than 15 minutes and got here to Puno on schedule, six hours later. Scheduled to tour some of the islands of the Lake tomorrow - should be good.