As the only person who´d slept at all on the journey to Aguas Calientes I was quite happy to get up at a ridiculous time to hike and make the sunrise (which we put at about 6ish)- thankfully Dave agreed to join me, whilst everyone else was simply too exhausted and decided to get the first bus instead! 

As the hike was supposedly two hours, we set alarms for ten to four (ouch...) but ended up leaving Aguas Calientes (the town at the foot of Macchu Picchu) at around twenty past after some extra dozing.
The route to Macchu Picchu involves a short hike to the foot of a massive and ridiculously steep mountain, where the road zigzags its way up, taking about forty minutes to drive! On foot however, the path is much simpler- hundreds and hundreds of Incan steps. Peruvian people not being the tallest in the world, you might expect fairly easy steps at that- but it´s simply too steep, and so instead they´re huge stone beasts intent on destroying your knees. 
We set off at a good pace, determined to make up lost time and see the sunrise, but it was seriously hard work. After perhaps twenty minutes of solid climbing, we noticed it was definitely getting lighter- which simply fuelled us to speed up, and we set an even more furious pace. 
Exhausted after much stepping up, we were justabout to halt for a long rest- you literally have no idea how far up the mountain you are due to thick vegetation- when David noticed bright lights up ahead- somehow we found fresh energy and darted up to the modern entrance, stuck into the side of the mountain- making it for half five. We`d made the climb in an incredible fifty minutes! Absolutely chuffed to bits with that.

The only other soul at the entrance was a crazy Irish guy, who´d been travelling for 16 months already, and was equally amazed by the sheer height of the stairs. Unfortunately, Macchu Picchu doesn´t actually open until 6am- we were early! When it finally did open, we were greeted with another dissapointment: as TAPA volunteers, we pretty much work for the INC (Peru´s National Institute of Culture), and are granted free access to every archeological site, but we were forgetting the Peruvian love of red tape. The guard sent us back to a nearby INC office, where we jumped through hoops and argued for twenty minutes, until we were eventually let in without problem. 

This isn´t my photo as they´re not ready yet, but it helps the description:


Climbing past the modern entrance we should have been greeted with the traditional sunlit postcard visto, as the actual sunrise was at 6am. However, due to the massive ring of dark mountains surrounding Macchu Picchu it doesn´t actually hit until a good hour later- leaving the place shrouded in thick cloud amongst the gloom. Our first view was incredibly atmospheric- a few ruined buildings were visible closeby, with a single dead tree just reaching above the cloud below, and the stones at the top of the commanding temple of the sun (tall building on the left, just in front of the smaller peak) swirling through thick thick fog far in the distance. I´ve never seen anything like it, and it simply blew me away- every moment and strain of the steps was absolutely worth it. Just utterly incredible. Climbing higher through the ruins we got a better view of the place itself- simply deserted, with thick cloud streaming off the sheer drop at the side, a few odd stones breaking through and the tip of the famous peak, Wayna Picchu, barely visible in the background.

Fairly soon after, the sun rose high enough to penetrate the black peaks and burned off the cloud, revealing and lighting up the city with a sheer brilliance that utterly took my breath away.

We spent a further several hours exploring the city and undertaking three hikes nearby (including up Wayna Picchu itself! Yes, that massively big steep thing hidden by cloud above) and I´d love to write fully about them, aswell as answer numerous questions, but I´ve ran out of time! Hopefully I can finish updating later today, but if not then almost certainly tomorrow.