Llamaramadingdong!

After exploring a great deal of the Urubamba (Sacred) Valley yesterday, I took the two-hour train ride to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu Mountain. It was dark by the time I got on the train (nightfall is around 6 here), but I could make out the Urubamba River which flows through the valley, around three sides of Mount Machu Picchu and then into the Amazon.
Apparently the Inkas believed that everything had a natural pair - man, woman; earth, sky and so on. The natural pair, or reflection of the Urubamba River is the Milky Way, which was a beautiful thought to hold on to as Klaus, my German seatmate talked the entire way to Aguas Callientes (the answer to your questionNortso: no).
I was up before dawn and took a bus to Machu Picchu, arriving before 7 am. It really is amazing and better than the pictures you see. It's also huge. I had a good two hours before many other tourists arrived to take lots of pictures and wander around all of the baths and temples and terraces; it felt like I was the only person there.
Once the tourists began appearing in earnest, I followed a trail along the back of the site which leads to an old Inka drawbridge. I'll spare you the bridge details now; the hike was amazing. Unlike the rest of the hot, dry, cactus-y places I've been in, Machu Picchu is in a cloud forest which means vegetation galore, birds, lizards, orchids, etc. About half-way down the path to the bridge, I turned a corner and came face-to-face with a bear. It was Bennet- sized (but stockier) and about twenty feet from me. Considering my options (right: steep cliff up, left: sharp cliff down, forward: bear) I decided to move back along the trail, hoping that the bear would go away so I could finish my walk. My plan worked well, until the bear started FOLLOWING me. I would take three steps backwards and the bear would move forward another foot and this continued for at least 5 minutes. I didn't have food in my backpack, aside from a packaged cliff bar, maybe he liked the smell of my sunscreen?
I was snapping pictures, but didn't have my telephoto lens on my camera and couldn't exactly start digging around my pack just then ('tourist eaten by bear while snapping photos...'). He finally hopped up the cliff to my left, but I heard an ominous crunch-crunching as he continued to walk in my direction. I finally did gather my resolve and go on to the bridge. On the way back, the
bear was at the top of the steep cliff rummaging around, so I could at least keep my eyes on him.
The other remarkable thing I did today was a climb to the top of Huyna Picchu, the huge, steep, monstrous (and did I mention big?) rock that you seen behind the ruins in all of the pictures of Machu Picchu. It was straight up some very treacherous steps and took me quite a while (on my way back, a guy was jogging up, the jerk). At the tippy-top, you perch precariously on large rocks for a spectacular view of the valley and an okay view of the ruins, which are quite far away at that point. I think a few to many cocoa leaves were involved in the decision to climb to that point, but put a feather in my cap; I'm glad I didn't miss the opportunity.
Tomorrow I'm on a bus to Puno in SE Peru, leaving Cusco and the Sacred Valley. The trip should be great - the scenery is supposed to be spectacular and we'll stop along the way at villages and viewpoints and so forth. I'm actually taking a day off from my vacation in Puno before a two-day tour in Lake Titicaca.