The 'bucket list': Machu Picchu

Thursday 19 May
Up at 4 a.m. Queues for the cavalcade of buses that zig-zag up the dusty road from Agues Calientes to Machu Picchu were long - and dawn broke while we waited and chatted to fellow travellers for an hour; but finally we were there and in fact the first rays of the sun popped over the mountains as we had our tour guide doing his spiel while we gawked at the vista before us.

The road is named after Yale University professor Hiram Bingham who in 1911 led a small expedition to Peru in search of the ‘lost city’ of Vilcabamba. Until the end of his life he thought he had discovered Vilcabamba. Returning in succeeding years, he took thousands of photographs. He also took thousands of objects to the United States for study and safekeeping, which was to cause wrangling between the Peruvian government and Yale University for years afterwards.

The Inca ruins lie on a high ridge, surrounded on three sides by the Urubamba River in a deep valley below. When Bingham first saw the maze of terraces and walls rising out of the thick undergrowth in 1911, he found himself in a ghost town that had been hidden from the outside world for nearly 400 years. "It seemed like an unbelievable dream," he later wrote. "What could this place be?"

And they are still trying to work it out. Endless theories abound: ceremonial site, a military stronghold, or a retreat for the ruling elite?

The tour was great and afterwards we walked all over - even walking up (several times because we kept getting into endless one-way loops that the guards monitored assiduously by blowing their whistles whenever anyone strayed in the wrong direction) to the watch tower and on further to the Inka Bridge. By the end of the morning it was very hot and we were pretty done-in although we then walked all the way back down to Agues Calientes rather than take the bus - which was pretty crazy.

Bonus was that the bottom, we stumbled upon the Manuel Chávez Ballón Museum which was excellent - plus the adjoining Botanic Garden. Ballón was in charge of archaeological research at Machu Picchu between 1966 and 1971. The museum added to the information given by our guide earlier today at the Machu Picchu complex.