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Sacsayhuaman is a massive Inca fortress, called the House of the Sun, on a hill top above Cusco. We were taken up their on our first day in Peru, walked around the site and then walked back down into Cusco.

( It is quite a thing )

Day 4 started at 3:30am in the morning because we were supposed to meet up with the rest of our party at 11am at Machu Picchu which was about 14km away. Most of the rest of the camp got up and set out around the same time for reasons that were less clear to me - maybe the general plan is to get to Machu Picchu before lunch and then spend the afternoon in the city.

Anyway, this meant the first hour of the walk was in the dark going down steep steps with head torches which, once the novelty had worn off, wasn't much fun. We were, presumably, missing some stunning views.

The first ruin of the day was Intipata. This involved a slight diversion off the Inca road itself. According to Wilbert no one had even known it was there until a forest fire about 25 years ago. It's a bit difficult to convey it in photographs, especially as we don't seem to have managed to take any which have any people in for a sense of scale. It was huge, each individual terrace rising above our heads. As far as one can tell, it was a farm.

( Photos under the cut )

We then went to Wiñay Wayna which was very similar except that Wilbert insisted it was a laboratory not a farm. We had previously seen another Inca "Laboratory" at Moray but were somewhat confused by the distinction. Laboratories, we were told, were convex while farms were concave. The convex shape caused microclimates at each terrace and you could see different plants were grown on each terrace so it was obvious that the Inca's were experimenting. B. and I felt a frew crucial steps were missing here for something to be called an experiment, as opposed to growing things where they grow best. I was actually getting rather tired at this point so I just sat down and admired the view at Wiñay Wayna, while B. walked down to look at the buildings disturbing some Llamas who were grazing on the terraces.

( More Photos )

Wiñay Wayna was right by a campsite of the same name. It was currently out of use following landslides but was, apparently, where people normally spent the final night on the trail. Having left us to explore Wiñay Wayna, Wilbert sat down and chatted to the various guides and porters working at the camp. When we got back he reported that several other parties had gone past, none going to look at the ruins... which again seemed rather odd. I guess for a lot of poeple the Inca Trail is about the walk and then Machu Picchu and not so much about the less well known ruins along the way.

Once past Wiñay Wayna, we left the controlled part of the Inca Trail. At that point I half expected to start seeing day trippers up from Machu Picchu but we never passed anyone going the other way. Wilbert said this was because day trippers were lazy (Wilbert considered many people lazy, including anyone who spoke Spanish in preference to Quechua) but I would have thought quite a lot of people would like to walk along a bit of an Inca road without necessarily doing so for four days and going over Dead Woman's Pass.

Anyway, we continued for another 5 or so km, mostly on the flat but rising slightly until we came to a set of steps that Wilbert cheerfully informed us were called the "Gringo Killer". He had my measure by now and offered to take my sticks while I clambered up.

( Evidence under the Cut )

Then we turned a corner and came out at Inti Punku, the Sun Gate, the ceremonial entrance to Machu Picchu. This is where you get your first glimpse of the city.

( Photos )

I'll leave Machu Picchu to another post. We were half an hour "late", but Wilbert had a back-up plan which involved showing us around himself and we bumped into the rest of the party during the tour. I was a little frazzled when we got there - a combination I think of the early start, a fairly long walk and the fact my esim wasn't working so I was out of WhatsApp contact from our other guide and so couldn't coordinate meeting up (I eventually managed to contact him via B's phone). But once I'd sent the WhatsApp message and had something to eat, I cheered up enough to enjoy the city.

I felt even better after a bus ride down to Aguas Calientes and a late lunch.

( Evidence of Lunch )

We did our Inca Trail holiday with Explore! who (out of necessity as I understand it) subcontracted to a local tour company. At some point something went wrong with getting permits for the trail. The story we were told was that the local agent forgot to apply for our permits, but several other people in the group had had permits delayed, so we concluded that there had been a more general permit mix-up which was simplified for our consumption as "forgot to apply for your permits". The up-shot of all this was that instead of travelling as part of a group of ten walkers with a guide, cook and porters it was just the two of us with a guide, cook and porters, setting out a day after everyone else with the aim of catching up with them at Machu Picchu. This was a mixed blessing, we got a lot more time with our guide and didn't have to worry that we were slowing anyone down, on the other hand it felt like an awful lot of staff for just us and even though our guide as very good at leaving us alone for various stretches, or sending us off on our own to explore things, it was quite intense.

( Photos and more under the cut! )

While in Århus, I went to Den Gamle By ("The Old Town", as I understand it) which is a collection of buildings, mostly moved to Århus from other parts of Denmark at various points in the 20th century. It's loosely arranged into three themed areas - 1600-1900 (The Old Town), 190-1927 and 1950-1974 though there is also a little bit of 2000-2014. You could enter most of the buildings and view the interiors - though most of the rooms were sectioned off behind glass.

( Pictures under the Cut )

We went to Quarry Bank Mill on New Year's Eve. This is a National Trust property consisting of a Cotton Mill, Mill Stream and Gardens and Apprentice House. Despite it being very close to us we had never seen it because Marmalade Sparrow was taken by school at some point and never wanted to go again! She claimed no memory of this experience or injunction when asked. We elected to go there entirely because the weather was doubtful and the Mill was open - unlike most other properties in the area where only the gardens were open.

It was a nice change from a lot of the Country House fare one normally gets with National Trust properties. In particular it had a lot of working machinery, including the mill wheel and several generations of spinning and weaving machines, many in working order with people present to demonstrate them in action! You could watch the cotton go through from fluffy bales, to strips of cotton wool, to cotton thread and then watch it woven into cloth. As usual, as well as plenty of interpreters, there were many information boards detailing life in the mill - it took us an embarrassingly long time to figure out how the maths of the mill population worked since it was supposed to be a "job for life" but also employed more children than men and women put together. There was also a second looking at how the slave trade interacted with the cotton industry (the kind of thing that has become surprisingly controversial in recent years, with a pressure group dedicated to returning the NT to its glory days and, presumably, excising all mention of slavery from its properties).

Also, as usual, there was a good restaurant serving hearty food, a shop and, less usual, a second-hand bookshop. Some elected to remain in the bookshop while the rest of us seized the opportunity of a break in the weather to explore the grounds. B. and I chose to wonder upstream to view the weir that controlled the water that powered most of the mill and which is now part of a small hydro-electric station.

( A few pictures under the cut )