Machu Picchu

When we signed up for our trek to Machu Picchu, we were told that we had the option to hike up to Machu Picchu with our guide early enough in the morning to be the first ones there instead of taking the bus up the mountain, but the night before we were to go, our guide said he wouldn´t hike up with us! We were really frustrated, so a group of us decided to hike up on our own with a pathetic map that our guide drew for us and our torches (headlamps). So we were up at 3:30 am, navigating our way through the dark jungle up a steep mountain side.

This is the mountain side we hiked up, starting from the town we stayed overnight in, Aguas Calientes, which you can´t see in this picture, its a bit to the left in the valley.
We found our way there without too many problems in about 1 1/2 hours. We were indeed the very first ones in line to be admitted at 6 am when the gates opened. It was magical getting there and seeing it without any people inside. We took roughly one million pictures of it in the first hour.




Our guide gave us an hour long tour of the ruins, but we could hardly understand his English, so we didn´t catch much of what he said. We did understand that he was trying to tell us what animals different stones supposedly looked like, but it was really a stretch to see some of them. Some people think Machu Picchu was an Inka University, but that is up for debate. We might have to read a book later to understand more of the history of Machu Picchu since we didn´t get much of it from the tour.




We hiked up Waynu Picchu, which is the dramatic mountain top that you see in our first pictures of Machu Picchu on the other side of the ruins. It is a very steep hike on narrow stone steps. The view from the top is incredible, especially of the surrounding mountains. The pictures from up top were not quite as good though.









The weather was bipolar while we were there. It was clear early in the morning, then rained for a while, then a thick mist settled in over all the mountains for a while. Then later it cleared up and was super hot and sunny!

We felt just like this llama at the end of the day. After 3 days of trekking at insane altitudes and then an early morning hike up the mountain, and then our afternoon hike up Waynu Picchu, we were completely wiped out. We both slept for 12 hours that night.

We spent the next day in Aguas Calientes just relaxing, eating good food and writing postcards.

That evening we took the slowest train ever back to Cusco. Cusco and our little hostel in San Blas almost feel like home, it was nice to return.

Our next stop is Arequipa, where the world´s deepest canyons are, as well as snow covered volcanos!