The first time I traveled to Peru I, of course, had Machu Picchu on my mind, but I denied it. As a Historian, I had to be fair and commit to the fact it's just another archeological site amidst many other in that country. So I went to Cuzco, which is one of the most amazing places I've ever visited, took a train through the Urumbamba Valley, also amazing, and got to Águas Calientes where the buses to the site depart from.
The bus goes up and twirling, you look through the window in expectation but you get no glimpse of the ruins at all. After half an hour you arrive at a busy parking lot, with a huge hotel at the bottom, where I got grumpy, reasuring my idea that it's all too much touristy. There's a long stone wall with a tiny passageway which I considered to be the start of the trecking, but it was not, you go through it and the city shows up surprisingly, all there, just in front of you.
I started shaking and weeping, I couldn't move forward. My husband mocked me.
I remember feeling like a child in an amusement park! I took pictures of every single detail because I had to bring it back with me somehow, but there's no picture to really mean it! You have to breath that air!