Visiting Machu Picchu takes a lot of planning. Let me give you a few examples:

Whilst sitting down for breakfast to recover from the journey in, my guide (Hernan) pointed out Inca terraces in the hills surrounding us. I noticed some crazy people hiking up the mountain around the terraces. They were so high up, they had that abstract, ant like appearance. The next thing Hernan said to me was, “We’re going up there after breakfast”. I laughed until I realised he was being serious.

My invincibly wilted.

It gets worse. After photographing the view from the first mountain, my guide pointed out another across the valley and insisted that we do that next.

Ultimately, the view was worth it and I got to see the Inca face in the rock which made me inexplicably excited. It’s a profile of an Inca man, between two manmade structures on the far peak. Can you see it?

After the hike up this peak, my fourth of the day, I was able to spend 10 minutes appreciating the view before we had to rush off to catch my train.

The train to Machu Picchu itself is spectacular. The route follows a river the entire way with high mountains on either side. The journey is a decent one, which means the mountains start off snow-capped but near the end of the line, they’re covered by a jungle. The scenery is mind blowing for the entire journey and the train is surprisingly modern and luxurious.

When the train finally arrives at Aguas Calientes, you’re welcomed by another surprise. The village exists only to serve tourists visiting Machu Picchu, so all it has is hotels, restaurants and bars, but it is done quite tastefully and blends in well with the surrounding jungle.

After my ridiculous but brilliant trip in to Aguas Calientes, I had a few hours to sleep before my 5am start the next day. It’s quite bizarre that there is a road from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu considering that there is no connecting road. The buses that transport tourists up the mountain were brought in via train.

The journey to Machu Picchu feels like it is straight up with a seemingly never ending series of hairpin bends. Although it is an interesting experience, my taxi ride the previous day made it seem tame.

I arrived at the entrance to the park with a few minutes to spare before sunrise. It was clear on the way up that there wasn’t actually going to be a sunrise as I could barely see 2 metres in front of me! Machu Picchu was literally in the clouds.

As we entered the gate, the security guard noticed my tripod and motioned to stop me. In one slick movement, I reached into my bag, whipped out my permit and confidently flashed it to the security guard. He actually read the permit which was the first surprise and then he explained to me that I had the wrong page. He wouldn’t let me take in my tripod without the correct page - which was sitting in Cusco. After pointing out the absurdity of the situation, the guard said he would call Cusco when the offices opened and I could collect my tripod at 10am.

So now I had no tripod, but it didn’t really matter because rain, mist and zero visibility doesn’t make for a great tourism video.

I sulked around the park from 5:30am until 12:30pm. We had to leave at 1, so I was feeling pretty depressed about not getting any imagery of the main attraction in South America. At 12:30, the air temperature changed and almost immediately, the clouds started lifting.

In half an hour, Machu Picchu revealed itself to me. Considering the mysterious status of the site, it was quite fitting. Imagine two pyramid shaped mountain peaks, towering over a jungle. Connecting these two mountain peaks is a narrow strip of land. Now imagine someone built acity on that narrow strip of land. Add a river below the mountain peaks that almost circles the peaks and creates a valley around the peaks. This is Machu Picchu. Even if it wasn’t an Inca capital, it would be spectacular.

Although my planning got shot to pieces, at 1:30pm I was standing with my tripod looking at one of the Wonders of the World and I was smiling...