Machu Picchu and a stain

Well I got to the foremost tourist attraction in Peru. It was indeed a tourist attraction, it seemed that almost everything was set up for tourists. First there is a train that takes you from Cusco to Machu Picchu - On the way there they sold books & caps & vests ; on the way back we had a fashion show. But when one climbs the mountain and gets one's first look at Machu Picchu none of the hype seems to matter - it was indeed amazing.

In the picture to the left you can see, not the usual view of the well know site, but the round temple of the sun (every Inca site seems to have one, for obvious reasons). It is also good that the mist is visible in the picture. We got to see the comings and goings of the mists all the time we were there. The guide was informative and it didn't rain, in other words a near perfect day.

Although the views from the train ride were wonderful to see (the train takes almost 4 hours). On the way back to Cusco in the late afternoon I read instead of watching the same scenery for a while and then the darkness. I have finished Andrew Taylor's latest in paperback "A Stain on the Silence". I didn't much like the tale of teenage wrongs and adults who generally did not take the responsibility they should have. But Taylor does write well and the juxtaposition of now and then was well done. As an interesting aside - the hotel I was staying at in Cusco had a table where one could leave books that were no longer wanted or take books that had been placed there. Rather a nice tradition. Problem was that the novels that were lying there when I got to the hotel were in Swedish, Finnish, Russian and some other non-English languages (these were all still there when I left the hotel 3 days later). I put Daley's Enemy of God on the table when I went out to go to the post office - it was gone when I got back 2 hours later.