The journey is the destination ... or something like that :D

Finally, the time has come: We are doing the Inca Jungle Trail: a 4-day tour to Machu Picchu.

The day before, José, our tour guide for the next few days, gives us a briefing. No one listens properly and relies on others. We think we are camping and bring unnecessary warm clothes. In reality, we are staying in warm hotels :D

On the first day, we will go mountain biking and then go whitewater rafting on the Urubamba River. As soon as we are on the water, a wave splashes over us and we are completely wet :D We get caught on a branch and think we will never get out of here. But luckily we have an experienced guide who maneuvers us out of this predicament. Finally, we hike to our accommodation in the jungle of the Urubamba Valley. Here we all try a snake schnapps and share it with Pachamama.

The next day, we start by grinding our own coffee. Strengthened, we hike through the Peruvian nature and learn a lot about the culture and customs of the Incas. We also hike a section of the legendary Inca Trail. José hands us three coca leaves and Lissi eats them right away. José is confused. The coca leaves are actually intended for a ritual. Lissi gets new leaves. We stand at the edge of the cliff and make a wish before letting the coca leaves be carried away by the wind. We cross the Urubamba River in a cable car and relax our strained muscles in hot springs. We take a bus to our hotel in Santa Teresa. It's pouring rain.

On the third day, we start the morning with ziplining. We zip-line over the Urubamba River 4 times. That was a lot of fun! We hike to Agua Calientes, a village at the foot of Mount Machu Picchu. We take a lunch break in Hydroelectrica and can pet cute dogs. We walk for about 3 hours in pouring rain along the tracks of the Peru Rail. Shortly before arriving in Agua Calientes, we find out that the travel agency forgot to buy us tickets for Machu Picchu... Instead of enjoying the free time until dinner like the others in our group, we have to go completely soaked to the Ministry of Culture and buy tickets. Luckily, there are still some available. After dinner, we go straight to our room so that we are rested for the upcoming climb. The others in our group have entrance tickets to Machu Picchu at 1 pm and therefore go out to celebrate.

We agree with José to meet him at half past 6 the next morning in front of the entrance to Machu Picchu. We hike up, he takes the bus. The ascent is tough. It is still dark when we start walking. It's raining, Asma is almost dying and Scholle suddenly has severe stomach problems on the way. Halfway there, we are about to give up because we think we won't make it to the top in time. The Polish couple who are also making the ascent with us motivate us to keep going. We actually make it and are in front of the entrance to Machu Picchu at half past 6. At 6:50 am, José still hasn't arrived and we can only enter the site until 7 am, as our time slot is then over - or so we think. In hindsight, we realize that our tickets would have been valid until 8 am :P We call José and find out that he has problems with his ticket. But he also sounded like he had just woken up. We never really understood what the problem was. We are told to go in and wait for him at the first viewpoint. We wait for 1.5 hours in the rain. It's super foggy and unfortunately we can hardly see anything of the impressive ruins. We call José again. We should still wait, a colleague will come and find us (Yeah right, no one looked for us). However, we have to leave at 10 am so that we can catch the bus back to Cusco on time. We start walking on our own and don't receive any information about Machu Picchu. If José had told us right away that he wouldn't make it, we could have gotten a guide at the entrance. We were very disappointed with him and that we had to walk through Machu Picchu without a guide. We would have really liked to learn more about the historical site. At least it has cleared up a bit and we still have a beautiful view :)

On the descent, we meet the rest of our group. We find out that someone from the group saw José at the club last night. That explains a lot... Since we walked straight back to Hydroelectrica to catch the bus to Cusco, we didn't see José anymore.

Somehow we didn't realize that the return journey was included in the price of the tour and we unnecessarily bought bus tickets from a nice lady, where we also enjoyed a delicious lunch. After a 6-hour bus ride, we finally arrive in Cusco and still have to pick up our backpacks from the travel agency before going to the Airbnb. Our clothes smell like death and we are completely soaked. Even though José let us down, the day was pretty cool.

Note from Lissi: The unnecessary warm clothes saved our asses.