should have been given that it cost twenty times more than the one we’d had in Chivay, in the same country!!

We headed out to check out the town and lunch options. This place was full on tourist-hell Peru - it was low season so everyone was desperate to get us into their shop / restaurant / bar - stopping just a little short of dragging us in by the hair!! And of course everything was pretty expensive as well, so we headed for the old Peruvian faithful - the market!! We managed to score some avocado, tomato, red onion, cheese and bread - our staple diet in the Colca Canyon! The cheese didn’t smell too good however, and tasted kind of like off yoghurt!! Still, it was a cheap meal at Machu Picchu - an achievement in itself!!

There were a couple of walks around the town, one of them

was basically straight up the side of a mountain that looked something like a miniature Mater Horn - we weren’t feeling quite up for that so we chose to walk down the valley a little towards Machu Picchu - we were going that way the next day but to be honest the scenery was so gorgeous we didn’t mind. We got down to the point where the road goes up the steep sided mountain to get to the ruins, and saw a sign saying “Machu Picchu Museum and Botanical Gardens”. Now we’re always suckers for botanical gardens, so off we went to check it out. We were somewhat put off though when even though we’d already paid twenty quid each for our entrance ticket to Machu Picchu, we were expected to pay another four quid to get into the museum or even just the gardens!! The rip-off aspect of this place was really starting to annoy us - we don’t mind paying for things, but when everything is ten and twenty times more expensive than elsewhere in the country you really do feel like you’re being had. And like Hel