Lima - Arequipa - Puno - Machu Picchu - Cuzco
The pace changes again, a little faster but it's for a good cause, that it is 5 We leave Lima for three weeks in southern Peru. Fred, Alice, Matthew and Claire rejoind me to share the adventure. Here I am in good company, happy to find old friends and make me happy again. The first thing to discover new entrants are of course the inevitable hour bus ride, single loop solution for a busy schedule to be completed in three short weeks. It soars So for 14 hours because, fortunately cut by a nice break in Nazca and we enjoy a wonderful fried chicken that we digest (not without difficulty) in the soft evening air, sitting on the spot. But soon up to serious business with a hike in the sport rather Colca Cayon near Arequipa, three days up and down around one of cayon the world's deepest. The climbs are steep and the descents are the thighs and knees strained but amigos, freshly emerged from their offices by m'épatent endurance. Our guide to when it is a real goat of the Andes that we are able to catch has on rare occasions (when he deigns to expect actually) and we get up at 2 o'clock in the morning to go walking!
I find the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, we rest a bit from Puno to Taquile Island and start again, the journey continues, a little further North West ...
We arrived a little misty morning in Cuzco after a bad night bus from the shores of Lake Titicaca. The faces still bear marks of that chaotic night when we engoufrons still half asleep in a taxi to the Estates San Pedro La station or the train to Aguas Calientes, the small village at the foot of Machu Picchu.
is a very pretty blue and yellow train that lifts us above the city as the fog dispersed, offering us the spectacle of tiled roofs and steeples caressed by the gentle colors of the morning. Can we leave the city, the train passes through a wide agricultural valley now, the sun is high and I head out the window. Winds of happiness and freedom in my hair short and I breathe air that tells me something ... I know it is there in the air that smell wonderful and exhilarating that we breathe on the first morning of summer vacation, when after a short night adventure begins. The sun is still low but it is already Hot in the shade of the bushes we feel this freshness of the night going back ditches, smells of flowers that are still a few drops of dew are enhanced by the excitation of departure towards new adventures ... summer here is the wonderful scent that tickled my nostrils at this moment.
The train runs on the board, but soon the ressere landscape around us, the mountains come closer and gradually we are alone with the stream, winding through the narrow valley. It now floats in the air a smell of mountain trail at the end of August, when the sun heat the crushed plants, trees, herbs and valleys and nature can finally breathe again, the days shorter, the nights longer, warmer temperatures allowed to breathe the wonderful scents that was hidden at the height of the summer, trying to escape the rampage of solar power. And always head out the train window, the scenery flooded my eyes but my mind is elsewhere, elsewhere in the heart of his family stories so linked to the rocking of trains on the track. I'm here on this train so far away, en route to Machu Picchu, which has undoubtedly been dreaming more than once what the history teacher my mother. And then the train and all those stories, those of my grandfather, son of guard fence and rail and Sunday epops Dreux in Granville, counted as the conquest of the west. My father and his boundless passion for train travel, the most beautiful lines of his early career between snowy Rumilly, Chambery, Modane, Annecy and wonderful stories still train in the snow and happy memories. The adventure continues in this century with my brother - Paris London at once - that cradled her son to 300 km / h before he can walk 4 blocks. Here I am in the midst of all this, head out the window, a few miles from Cuzco in the Andes to Machu Picchu.
The journey continues and over the valley ressere, the more lush vegetation, lush, trees, vines, leaves and a vast swatch of green in full force. Rolling rocks us, the wheels squeal when we attack the curves, the noise changes when we pass tunnels but soon abated and we are entering the small station of Aguas Calientes, we are at the foot of the Incan city!
It still wake up with a story that begins this morning too memorable day. By the light of headlamps we climb in line Indian stone stairs in invaded vegetation. When that day dawns, the road stops and we are at the gates of the city after an hour's walk with his eyes half-closed. Even still half asleep the excitation is at its height, we eat breakfast overlooking the mountains and penetrate into the lost city, perched on a mountain unlikely amid a surreal setting. The site is just incredible and when the mind wanders, a veritable pageant which gets under way. The first men who thought this city, the first stone and the work of tailors, masons, gardeners, architects, farmers and the arrival of Lord Inca, Manco Kapac great with his court, his family, the celebrations in the sun, moon, sacrifices at the precise moment the last rays of sun, incredible festivals at the solstices and daily life, people coming and going, kids crying for the breast, bread oven that smokes in the morning, the joy of births, deaths, the cycle of life, races of the stars ... The emotion that overcame me when I sit in the grass at sunset, resting against the stone walls perfectly joined ... 
From sunrise to sunset so we walked the ruins and terraces, perched on Wayna Picchu, this rocky outcrop overlooking the Inca city and then came the last rays and the time to back down to earth and return to his day. 
Alice and Fred left yesterday and we leave tomorrow, Claire, Matthew and myself for another lost city of Choquequirao that! The journey is not finished! And here is a photo of the team thin on the ruins of Pisac (no no Pisaq is not a village in the Dordogne!), A huge thank you for having crossed the Altantic to come and share this adventure and thank you for the good times we spent together.
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