Machu Picchu

Our last day again began early, we were up at 3:30. This time though I had a harder time getting up. We had to wake up early so that we could walk 15 minutes to stand in line at the check point which would open at 5:30 to continue on the rest of the trail to Machu Picchu. For some reason we had thought that we would be able to be at the sun gate at sun rise, but that was not the case. Eric did however give us the option to go to another near by archeological site and watch the sun rise from there rather than wait in line. The only down side to that was that we would be the last group to be in line when the check point opened. He let us choose which we would like to do, we opted to go to Winawayna. We were so glad that we did. It was so beautiful and peaceful as we again were the only group there. Seeing all of the archaeological sites was truly breathtaking every single time! Each one of them where amazing and unique, I would not have wanted to pass up the opportunity to see any of them.

This also was the first chance we got to see the Lamas, which I of course was afraid of.

 

Once it got light we headed back to the cross the check point. We got there with plenty of time, enough that we still had to wait in line for a bit. The hike from the check point to the sun gates is pretty tame in comparison to the previous days. The highlight was definitely the monkey stairs where Dahlin and another of the trekkers raced to the top. Wish I had a picture, but they are called monkey stairs because they are so steep you have to use both hands and feet to climb to the top of them, but they are short, it took Dahlin less than 30 seconds to get to the top of them. Dahlin and I also felt pretty free hiking this day as we got to send our sleeping bags and mats home with the porters so our bags where literally half the size as they had been before.

Machu Picchu was beautiful! We spent 3 hours touring the different areas and learning about the significance of everything here, which I really really loved! Again everything was so impressive and amazing! But it was super busy! And super hot! And we were all super tired! So when free time came no one really stuck around too long, we decided to jump on the bus and head down.

We learnt a ton of interesting things during the tour, one of the things I thought was most interesting, and sad where these orchids. They cause you to hallucinate and apparently this is what the Inca people would give the children that they were going to sacrifice and then they would take them to the top of the mountain and leave them. This was apparently a huge honor to the families of the child being sacrificed.... but to this mother it breaks my heart hearing about it a little.