The famed "lost" city of Machu Picchu was always planned as a highlight of our trip to Peru and that was the way it turned out - in more ways than one. Our day started with a trip on the exclusive Hiram Bingham "Orient Express" train, which leaves from just outside Cusco.
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The Club Car of the Hiram Bingham train
The Observation car at the rear of the train filled up with rowdy South American tourists who sung, danced and drank their way through the countryside.
The train descended (strangely enough) through increasingly dramatic scenery. Although Machu Picchu is high in the Andes, Cusco is even higher, so we were actually going downhill, following a river.
The train stops at the ramshackle town of Puenta Ruinas and a bus takes you up a winding road to the entrance to Machu Picchu itself.
The ruins are fascinating but the setting makes the whole place just spectacular with breathtaking mountains all around and precipitous cliffs on all sides.
Farming terraces just outside the main city and retaining walls supporting the Sun Gate temple above
The accuracy with which the rocks are placed together is still an engineering miracle and not fully understood to this day.
As the afternoon passed, the sun began to fall and the shadows grew longer.
Rain in the distance created a rainbow in the mountains
