I visited Peru in 2012 during my first visit of the South American continent. Together with Peru I also visited Bolivia. Why I picked Peru is quite obvious – Machu Picchu. The city of Cuzco was our first stop in Peru. We arrived to Cuzco from Bolivias Copacabana. Cuzco is a beautiful city probably the most beautiful I saw in Peru and it´s an obligatory stop before Aqua Calliente – which is a small village before Machu Picchu. We were quite surprised by the price we had to pay to get to Machu Picchu. We personally had to pay together 140€ per person to get from Cuzco to the entrance gates of Machu Picchu. Unfortunately there is no possibility to get around it, there is only a single train company owning the connection to Aqua Calliente (the same one owning the Orient Express). The ticket price is fixed, as the entrance price to Machu Picchu. We could say that that´s the golden pig of Peru and in some moments I had the feeling that Machu Picchu is a folk museum. As in every other tourist attraction you have to go early in the morning. What in this case was to take the 4:30 a.m. bus (the first one). Even so there were at least 50 people before us at the bus stop. By the time we got to the entrance gate there were already at least 100 people waiting, which went by foot. They took the Inca Trail – crazy people! J
