What should a Spanish student in Cusco do during the first weekend off? Indeed: I made it to Machu Pichu yesterday! It was a lot cooler than I expected. We left at 5am in the morning. I was picked up at my homestay by taxi. The taxi brought us to the train station. The train left at 6am. Our ride was 4 hours long to Aguas Calientes. I had splurged for the nicer train and we had a lot of windows to look out of. Also we were served a small breakfast.

We arrived in Aguas Calientes around 10 am and met our very enthusiastic guide, Darwin at the station. Then our tour group got on a bus for the 30 minute ride to Machu Pichu. Being there was actually gorgeous and my pictures just don´t do it justice. Our tour was probably an hour and a half walking around all the ruins of temples, dwellings and agriculture.

At 3:00 we got back on our train for the ride back. Now the ride back should have also taken 4 hours, which would have been a long enough day, but the train broke down about 3 hours into the trip. We all ended up sitting for 2 hours waiting for the engine to be replaced. It was actually quite interesting to see how everyone reacted. I was sitting across from a nice old couple from Colorodo and next to a man from Argentina. It was a nice group and we had a lot of fun. Other people panicked and were very upset though. I was able to use the time to practice my Spanish with people around me. Anyway we ended up getting pushed to the closest station by another train and then taking a bus from there. It was an interesting experience and I survived.