When I woke up to go discover Macchu Picchu I saw that it was raining outside and my heart sunk. By the time I went to the bus it had stopped raining but the sky was completely clouded.

Once in Macchu Picchu I rushed through the whole site in 5 minutes to get to the start of the path to the top of Huayna Picchu, the steep mountain that you see behind the ruins on the typical photo of Macchu Picchu. Only 400 people are allowed to make the climb each day and I didn't want to risk not being one of them. I was number 143.

The climb took an hour and was spectacular, because it is incredibly steep, the stairs cut out in the rock were very slippery from the rain, and we couldn't see a thing as we were climbing in a cloud. We got the full jungle experience though. To get to the very top I had to literally squeeze myself through a tiny tunnel on hands and knees, pulling my backpack behind me, crazy.

As expected, there was absolutely nothing to see on the top except whiteness all around us. I was there for the view down on Macchu Picchu so I started waiting, like most people. After an hour the first holes appeared in the clouds and we could see bits of Macchu Picchu occasionally. That was spectacular but of course not what we came for. A bit later the clouds swallowed the whole sight again and some people left. By now I had conquered the spot on the very top of the top (it is small, rocky and uneven up there) and kept waiting. A bit later it started raining, and I was cursing my bad luck with the weather. Most people left now but I kept waiting.

After 3 hours the clouds suddenly disappeared, the sun broke through and I was rewarded with the view I came for, except that the mountain tops were still covered in clouds. It was well worth the wait :) Check my web album when I've uploaded some photos of this day.

It's on the way down that I realised how spectacular the path up Huayna Picchu really is; you can see the mountain before you as you start and it looks impossible to climb, and while you're climbing you see Macchu Picchu most of the time. But as I said all I saw on the way up was whiteness.

By the time I was down again the sun was gone so I didn't get any good pics among the ruins, big shame. You have to know that the reason this is the high season for traveling in Peru, despite it being mid winter, is that it's supposed to be dry and sunny all the time. Just my luck to have a day of bad weather just on this day that I visit the most spectacular site, the day after it was sunny again :( Same thing happened with Tikal in Guatemala last year.

After all the waiting on Huayna Picchu I only had three hours left to visit Macchu Picchu itself but that was just enough. The ruins are interesting but not that special, what makes Macchu Picchu fantastic is the setting and the fact that the crazy Incas built a whole city up there.

The view from the far side of the ruins turned out to be the one you see on all postcards, truly fantastic, one of the most amazing sights in the world, but by the time I got there the sky was all grey and it started raining again, and it wouldn't stop anymore now. I got completely soaked through but I was still gonna use every minute until 17:30, the time when the last bus departed. I used the last hour to walk along the cliff-hugging path to the Inca Bridge and back, which was another spectacular walk, even in the pouring rain :)

I got the last bus, had another great dinner for 4 euro - and this time the owner wanted to add a free glass of wine, probably because I was the only customer in his restaurant two days in a row :) - caught my train to Ollantaytambo, and immediately found a good room.

This story will be far more interesting with photos so I'll try to add some soon!