So, we finally went to Machu Picchu! We have spent the past few days exploring Cusco, and we also went deeper into the Sacred Valley and visited Ollantaytambo, another town that has some pretty cool ruins. They were also celebrating a festival–cause as Steve says, there are ALWAYS festivals down here–so we got to watch a lot of locals dance around in bright clothes with lots of feathers. Kinda cool. Anyway, we caught a night train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, AKA Machu Picchu Pueblo, and then caught the first bus up to the ruins, arriving at flipping 5:45 in the morning. The early morning was definitely not nice, but it was worth it to get there so early. Most people take a train from Cusco, so they don`t arrive until around 10, and the people from the Inka Trail didn`t show up till 7 or 8, so we had the place to ourselves for awhile. We climbed up the the Caretaker`s Hut right away, so we had the overall view…..it was beautiful! Clouds were rolling across the ruins, and the mountains of Huayna Picchu was shooting up in the background. After sitting up there for awhile, we walked over to the Inca Bridge, this old bridge they built out of stone to cross this vertical cliff thing….kinda intense. (that is where the picture of the both of us is from) After the bridge, we climbed the big mountain in the back, the Picchu mountain, and checked out the ruins and the view from the top. It was apparently a ceremonial site as well, so there were quite a few more ruins up there, and it was really cool to see Machu Picchu from that high up….almost looks like a model, doesn`t it?
After we climbed down, we spent a few hours and wandered around the ruins….they were a lot bigger than we thought, and it took us awhile. Of course, I took seventy million pictures, but I couldn`t seem to stop myself. Whatever. Who knows if I will ever be back!
We met a family from Idaho after we had left the ruins and were eating lunch in the cafeteria outside. Their son had been in Lima for two years as a Mormon missionary, and we were worried that he was going to try to convert us. Luckily, he didn`t make any attempts, but his dad seemed to think we were the wealthiest people in the world after he found out we had been travelling for a year. He was actually kinda rude about it, and was like “Don`t you need to work or anything?” Yeah, ok, thanks. Some people are so intent on working and the typical mon-friday routine that they forget you can actually save sometimes and go do fun things…stupid man!
meeting up with Duane and Aaron in a few days so the boys can go climb their big mountain….I think it is called Artesonraju….pictures online look cool, and it is supposedly like the mountain on the Paramount Studios movie intro….I`ll take good pictures!!!
