Our flight took hardly an hour (well, plus 45 mins delay). It was quite an experience to fly above these countless mountains and see everything from above. After the 10-Sol taxi ride from the airport to the historic center, we walked around for what felt like hours with all our backpacks to find a cheap and nice hostel. At that point we were used to that though, since we hardly ever booked a place to stay in advance.

In the end we found a nice and cozy place called Hostal Central (it got less nice and cozy from day to day though), where we had to pay 15 dollars each per night. We walked around the centro historico for a while and the two of us agreed that this was the most beautiful city in Perú we’d been to until that point. It looked quite like some Mediterranean small town in Spain or Italy. Recommendations for a restaurant and a café in Cuzco: Los Perros and Kushka…Fe.

On Thursday we finally took the train from Poroy to Machu Picchu which cost us 140 dollars (!) each for a return ticket. We did not book a tour since we wanted to do it all in one day. In addition to the train, we had to pay 20$ for a taxi to Poroy and back to Cuzco plus about 40$ each for the entry fee to Machu Picchu.

They certainly know how to turn that amazing Inca site into a lot of money. It was worth it though! Standing up there, this famous view I’ve seen so many times on photos now right in front of me, was similar to seeing the Empire State Building for the very first time to me.

Most people took the bus up there, as we figured while walking up the stairs made of stone. I think it’s something like 1’500 steps up there and it certainly felt like at least 10’000. The fact that it was starting and stopping to rain all the time was quite annoying as well, but as we finally arrived at the top, we were happy we’d done the stair-hike.