Awwww, Machu Picchu. Everything that could go wrong it getting here did go wrong, going back a week and in a different country. Trying to get from Santa Cruz to La Paz, Bolivia was a nightmare and ended up taking us two days longer than expected because all the bus tickets were sold out. Finally, we got to Desaguadero, Peru right on the Bolivian border. From there we should have had an 1.5 hour and 7 soles bus ride to Puno. However, disgruntled Peruvians protesting high food prices decided to block the roads throughout Peru, including the route to Puno. The protest was supposed to end at 8 that night. The protests supposedly ended but the bus drivers still refused to go because they said that the campesinos had put rock baricades on the roads. I was thinking, "well we just get off the bus and move the rocks, ya esta." Finally we found a caravan of taxi drivers that were going on some back country roads around the baricades. I came to understand that when Peruvians put up rock baricades, they really put up rock baricades. So we were driving down some dirt road in the middle of nowhere in a caravan (strength in numbers). Apparently the farmers in the middle of nowhere got the notice late that Peru was on strike because they were just starting. Our drivers had to negotiate and work our way through a couple of baricades. Finally we got back to the main highway. For the last 50 miles or so there were rocks strewn all over the road. Literally miles of rocks that we had to weave around. I understood why the bus drivers didnt want to go. So we got to Puno, from Puno another interesting bus ride to Cusco. We had a great day in Cusco. We were supposed to get free round trip train rides through the organization that Jesse works for, but we found out that we have to apply and then wait 2 weeks. We didnt have two weeks so we had to pay100 bucks for round trip tickets. Then they didnt like my student i.d. because it didnt have an expiration date so I had to pay full price to get into Machu Picchu, about 40 bucks. Then on the train ride there was a German running all over the train trying to take pictures of any rock he figured an Incan could have touched. Then, on the final leg of my journey, on a bus up the switch backs to Machu Picchu I had a Frenchman get mad at me (in French). Still not sure but I think he wanted the window seat (I came to that conclusion because he was leaning over me the whole time to video tape the ascent). But the view of Machu Picchu, as you can see from this photo and the ones below, priceless.