I arrived at Cusco after my 1 hour flight from Lima and was met by my driver Raul, who took me on the winding 90 minute drive down to the Pakaritambo Hotel (first picture below) in Ollantaytambo, which at 9000ft altitude is almost 3000ft below Cusco - a good place to get altitude acclimated. After a quick turnaround at the hotel, I walked up to the town square for lunch, bought my Buleto Touristico and headed up (and I do mean up) into the Ollantaytambo Inca ruins (second and third pictures below). The views from the top terraces back toward the town were excellent (fourth picture below). I learned that all Inca sites have three things in common: they're built on steep cliffs, they're terraced and they have a quarry nearby.

Lima's Basilica Cathedral on the Plaza de Armas

Pakaritampu Hotel

Ollantaytambo base

Ollantaytambo trail

Ollantaytambo town

I woke early, grabbed breakfast at the hotel and met my driver Raul for a full day tour of the Sacred Valley ($60US - cheap!). We started at the Písac Incan ruins, which was about 90 minutes away. Travel books don't have a lot of information about Písac, which is why I was surprised at how huge this complex was. It includes two large terraced areas (first two pictures below), each with a set of Inca ruins (third picture below). My guess is that the whole walking circuit that I did covered ~5 miles. There's a famous market in the town of Písac which we visited briefly - I'm not much of a souvenir shopper when there's more to see ahead. From Písac, we headed back down into the Sacred Valley toward the town of Maras, outside of which is Salineras (fourth picture below), which is a huge working salt mining operation that uses the original Incan subterranean spring irrigation system to deposit salt on the terraces, which are then dried and processed.

Pisac front terraces trail

Pisac back terraces trail

Pisac inside the ruins

Salineras salt mine terraces

Things got off to a somewhat bumpy start when I arrived at Ollantaytambo station, which was a 5 minute walk from my hotel. The inbound train from Cusco was delayed by a hour with no explanation. Once it did arrive, I was ushered into the wrong car of the train, which required a quick run to the right train car at a brief train crossing stop. Credit to the PeruRail folks onboard for acknowledging the problem and working quickly to fix it. Once that was worked out, things went smoothly. The Special Services car was pure luxury (third picture below) - uncrowded, with a great breakfast and attentive service. The view from the train as it made its 90 minute journey through the Urubamba river valley was beautiful (fourth picture below - taken through the train window). My guide for Machu Picchu, Carlos Alberto Yepez (carlo_yepez@hotmail.com 51-084-9399122), whom I highly recommend, rode in the same train car.

Moray Inca agri-lab

Moray Inca agri-lab low tiers

PeruRail Special Service car

View from the train

A note here to serious photographers: there's information on travel blogs about unpublished restrictions on what type of photography equipment is allowed into Machu Picchu, resulting in $300US fees for >200mm lenses, tripods or "professional-looking" equipment. I don't doubt the accuracy of those accounts, but when I entered no one was checking anything or opening any photo backpacks. My advice is to keep your best camera and lenses in the bag until you pass by the entrance turnstiles. So what equipment do you need? More than anything else, you need the widest angle and sharpest lens that you own. Also useful is a haze cutting filter and a circular polarizer if you plan to shoot mid-day. If you're discreet, I can attest to the fact that you can also use a non-tripod looking tripod like the Joby GorillaPod Focus.

Aguas Calientes pueblo

Llama along the trail

Takin in the view

Machu Picchu sun temple

Above and to the left of the Guardhouse is Machu Picchu's "postcard" view (third picture above), which despite its familiarity was truly awe-inspiring. It was at this point in time that I knew that Machu Picchu was going to more than live up to its considerable hype. Carlos took me through the entire site with good, brief explanations of the history and meaning of what we were seeing. The main gate and Sun Temple (fourth picture above) were followed by the lower urban (first picture below) and agricultural areas. We paused from 1 to 2pm for a good, but not great lunch at the very expensive Sanctuary Lodge near the site entrance before I headed out on my own for the remainder of the afternoon. On Carlos' advice, I headed up and away from the site on the steep Inca trail to the Sun Gate (second picture below), which is where Inca trail hikers first view the complex after their 4 day trek. With the crowds disappearing in the late afternoon, I returned to the main site to relax and take some panorama shots, which I stitched together in PhotoShop for the large picture, top of page left, and the wide picture below. At 5pm I headed for the bus to Aguas Calientes and my train trip back to Ollantaytambo. After an alpaca steak dinner at my hotel and some picture processing, I retired for the night.

Machu Picchu lower urban

The sun gate 

Cusco's Cathedral on Plaza de Armas

Cusco Pumacuro Rd.

Machu Picchu 4 shot stitched panorama from the end of the Inca trail

After a quick turnaround, Eduardo and I headed out for a nighttime tour of the city. We started at Plaza san Martin and then walked the crowded pedestrian streets to Plaza de Armas (large picture, top of page right). Ornate wooden balconies were a prolific architectural feature, the preservation of which the city encourages. From the central district we drove west to Parque Reserva, home of the largest fountain park in the world. The displays (just one small example in second picture below) as well as the 20 minute show were worthwhile (complete video of the show is in the player at the bottom of this page). My impression of Lima at night was that it is a vibrant city with people everywhere and is nowhere near as dangerous as its reputation. I finished the day at the Sushi Ceviche Lounge in the hotel, where I sampled a few types of Lima's famous ceviche coupled with another Peruvian specialty, Pisco sours.

Cusco's Sacsayhuaman

Lima's Parque Reserva

Lima's Cathedral interior

Barranco Bridge of Sighs

After a good breakfast at the hotel, Eduardo picked me up at 9am for a full day tour of Lima and its environs. Starting back at the Plaza de Armas, we visited the inside of the Cathedral (third picture above), the San Francisco Monastery along with its massive catacombs (no pictures allowed) and the inside of colonial Casa de Osambela, before heading out of town to Pachacamac Sanctuary. Pachacamac Sanctuary is a huge religious complex with pyramids, temples and plazas dating from long before the Incas. While the scale was large, so much has been removed or damaged that it wasn't very impressive to visit. Returning to Lima along the coast, we did a walking tour and late lunch in the bohemian Barranco district, which has the locally famous "Bridge of Sighs" (fourth picture above) over its ravine. Continuing back to Miraflores, we toured the square and then the cliffside Larcomar complex, which looked very much like an upscale American mall. We finished with a walk to my hotel through the outdoor art along the ocean park. After dinner and some packing, I met Eduardo again who drove me to the airport for my 11:50pm flight back to LAX via IAH. All-in-all a sometimes challenging, yet excellent trip.