As  I was writing my post on Machu Picchu a few days ago I of course looked through all of my pictures from that trip. There were so many shots I loved but I couldn’t post them all so I decided to do a second post of a picture tour of my travels from Cusco along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu using some of the pictures I wasn’t able to fit into the first post.  So here they are.

First stop on my G Adventures tour was the Incan capital city of Cusco.

Cusco Cathedral in Plaza de Armas

Qorikancha

View over Cusco from Qorikancha.

After touring the city we went out to some of the Incan sights around Cusco. The sights we saw were Saqsaywaman, Q’enqo and Tambomachay.

Saqsaywaman

Alpacas at Saqsaywaman.

Q’enqo

Next we were off to hike the Inca Trail. By far the most difficult part of the journey and if you read my previous post you already know we were plagued by rain and sadly were not able to really see and appreciate some of the sights along the trail. I still managed to get some great pictures though, as you can see below, and I think some of them are even improved by the clouds and mist as the trail and ruins acquired a mystical, even surreal quality.

Before reaching the trail we stopped at a small town (sadly its name escapes me) along the way to grab supplies and have a quick coffee before starting our hike. As you can see it was a beautiful spot with the mountains in the background and the clouds sitting quite low.

Next stop was the trail itself. After acquiring all of our gear we had our passes stamped, crossed the bridge and we were on the trail.

It did start out sunny, if only it had lasted! And look how nice and flat the trail is here, that didn’t last either.

Here are the first ruins we came to on the trail. It was quite a large site with an even larger site visible down the hill.

Hiking up up up in the pouring rain.

We encountered ruins periodically along the trail, most in great shape. Everything was also very green, as it should be with all that rain. The mountains were gorgeous with waterfalls either beside the trail or off in the distance.

View of the final ruins we saw on the trail from the other side of the river just after we left the Inca Trail. We then walked a couple of hours along the train tracks into Aguas Calientes. We were so excited to be on the final leg and heading for a hotel where we would finally be dry.

Final walk into Aguas Calientes.

And now Machu Picchu. After 3 days of hiking in the pouring rain we finally made it.

It was an amazing trip full of highs and lows and lots and lots of rain. We started in the sun and thankfully the sun shone down on our last day too when we were in Machu Picchu making it the perfect end to the trip.