as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. But it's absolutely true, a
real-life archaeological adventure in the South American jungle.
One hundred years ago next July, American explorer Bingham made the
sensational discovery of Machu Picchu, the deserted mountaintop Inca
city near Cusco, high in the Peruvian Andes.
Of course, getting to Machu Picchu is an awful lot easier today,
either by walking the four-day Inca Trail - which my 3am colleague
Clemmie Moodie has been heroically tackling this week - or by train. I
joined the Vistadome train at Ollantaytambo in the Inca Sacred Valley
near Cusco.
It's a splendid blue train, with huge viewing windows, that takes a
couple of hours to reach the station at Machu Picchu Pueblo.
Then it's on to a bus to the Inca city itself via a rather twitchy
ride that climbs into the mountains on a series of alarmingly tight
hairpin bends.
You finally arrive at the lost city, and what a glorious view it is.
It truly is one of life's must-see places. I was so awe-struck I just
stood staring and snapping away with my camera.
Finally, it's time to head in to the city itself to explore and wander
around in the centuries-old footsteps of the Incas. If you are
visiting Machu Picchu it's a racing certainty you will spend some time
in Cusco, the chief city of the region.
Perched at a lofty 11,200ft, it merits a few days' visit to
acclimatise to the altitude. I stayed at the Hotel Monasterio, which
offers oxygen piped into your room to assist with the adjustment.
Cusco is a captivating city, there's a feel that you're in somewhere
otherworldly in what is a dusty high-altitude Andean bowl dripping
with Incan heritage and Spanish colonial architecture. It's a
boisterous place too. As the starting point for trips to Machu Picchu
by both rail and foot on the Inca Trail, it's a magnet for tourists of
all ages and very much a thriving regional capital.
Before heading to Machu Picchu I stayed at the Tambo del Inka Hotel in
the Sacred Valley, a fine spa resort made remarkable by the size of
the public rooms.
They are quite simply ENORMOUS. The LA Lakers basketball team would
feel utterly lost in the huge foyer. But they would be just as
impressed as I was by the view from it at sunrise as the first pink
rays hit a lofty Andean glacier.
And who could not be moved by the sight of the night sky in this
valley? As I strolled through the gardens a shooting star caught my
eye as it flashed across the night sky. Only then did I fully
appreciate the majesty of the constellations at this altitude with no
light pollution.
Written by 2Machupicchu
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