Around the World in 180 Days: Machu Picchu

To get to the bus to Machu Picchu on time, we had to wake up around 4.45. The bus upwards took about 30 minutes, and we briefly considered that we should have walked up until we saw the extent of the switchbacks it was forced to make.
We arrived in Machu Picchu around 6, and we didn't have to stand for long in the line. There weren't many tourists there then, as we had arrived on the first bus, so for all that the city was mainly covered in mist and llamas it was particularly beautiful.
For about two hours we walked around the city (ample time to take a few hundred photos) and upon completing the tour went back out the check-point thing and had a snack. Then we went back in and walked around some more. The city is built on the edge of a cliff pretty much on either side, triggering my parents' vertigo and requiring me to stand a good ways pack from the edge. It is surrounded by jungle stretching below, except for a patch of terraces which were cleared a few hundred meters below the main construction. This led me to believe that there are many more terraces than are visible, and the jungle is still overgrowing them.
We walked up a path towards the temple of the sun. Thanks to the couple-foot-wide path and the sheer drop, we didn't make it all the way but had a beautiful view of the city and were able to take a few pictures reminiscent of the traditional postcard view of Machu Picchu. These views are reached by taking a much less steeper path than that necessary to climb Huancayo Picchu (the mountain nearest to Machu Picchu), and it is free to get there.
Rather than attempt to describe what we saw, I am going to post a LOT of pictures, and not put captions on them because it is too much of a formatting hassle. Most of them are fairly self-explanatory.
The train back back to Cusco was supposed to leave around 3.20, so after visiting the ruins we had a lot of time to kill. We went to an internet cafe, and to another cafe, then back to our hotel. The hotel people let us sit in the lobby despite having checked out hours earlier, and we did so until it was time to go to the train station.
For some reason unexplained to us, the train didn't leave until 4.20 and, not wanting to miss it, we spent the intervening hour at the rather crammed and spartan station.
The ride was pretty surreal. We followed the same route that we had taken previously, only in reverse and well past Ollantaytambo. During the trip they played the exact same songs that they had before repeatedly. At one point they also had a dancer dressed up in traditional costume come out and dance through the aisle, as well as a fashion show put on by the attendents modelling alpaca and vicuna merchandise.