The lively conversation with the 3 New Zealand girls finally petered out in the early hours of New Years day, and I hit the sack, setting my alarm rather optimistically for 6 am. My problem was that the bus that normally ferries people the 500 vertical metres (1650 feet) from Aguas Calientes up to Machu Picchu doesn’t run on New Years day. Or may not run – nobody seems to know.

And so it was that at 6 am I somehow crawled out of bed and decided that I was up to the task of walking 10 km (6 miles) and climbing 500 metres, with a mild hangover. By 6:30 I was off, and decided to jog to make the trip a bit shorter. Once the road started to zigzag dramatically up the hillside, I discovered that I could drastically reduce the required horizontal distance by climbing up a trail that went directly up the hillside through the switchbacks. This, I worked out as I huffed and puffed up the steep slope into the clouds, reduced the journey distance by over half.

At 7:30 I reached the gate of Machu Picchu. Mist was swirling round mysteriously, giving tantalizing views of the valley and surrounding peaks. The gate was closed, and there was nobody around, but a sign implied that Peru’s premier tourist attraction would indeed open at 8am as normal. At 7:59 a rather surly individual staggered up the road towards me, took some money from me, opened the gate, and waved me through.

I was Machu Picchu’s first visitor of 1991. And it looked like I would be its only visitor for a while yet…

There was little to see at first as the cloud drifted this way and that. But as I got higher into the Inca city, the cloud drifted down into the valley, revealing the classic view that I had seen in photos so many times. I had wanted to be somewhere special to start 1991, but what I was experiencing was vastly better than I had dreamed of.

There was still no sign of anyone else. It was just Machu Picchu and me, floating on a sea of cloud…

After nearly an hour of alternately sitting, and wandering around absorbing the energy, I saw 2 or 3 other people appear below me, but it was clear that most people in the area had decided that New Year’s day morning was not the time to visit Machu Picchu.

Though the clouds were occasionally letting some sunshine through, the day was a wet one and the rain started when I headed over to the Inca Bridge. This is an amazing defensive construction on a path that the Incas cut into the cliff face that formed one of the few access routes to the city. They left a gap in the path, that was normally spanned by tree trunks – these could be removed if the city was under attack, making progress along the path impossible.

The rain eased, so after seeing the famous sundial rock, I took advantage to climb the Huayna Picchu, which is the dramatic peak that appears behind the classic view. From afar it looks really hard – a rock climb basically. But there is a path cut into the rock enabling people to climb the peak in relative safety – so long as they have an uncommonly good head for heights! From the top I could see the zigzag road clearly, and by early afternoon I was heading back down that road to Aguas Calientes, and what I have decided is a well earned rest.

I headed out to have some food, but most places seemed to be closed and the rain was coming down hard again. After running into Alison at the station (she and the other 2 girls are heading back to Cusco) I decided to head back here to Gringo Bill’s and open my “emergency” tin of sardines! I am feeling a bit feverish again so stayed in, got my diary up to date, and am having an early night.

Tomorrow I will head south once more, and see what fortune 1991 brings…