machu picchu at last!!

Hey, quick note is that the fb and blog pics are basically the same in this one, but I wanted to give an account to the pictures in the blog.

It was weird, being the final day of trekking and all. Still, it is not often you wake up to a view like that.

Or that

Did I mention that the porters are awesome. Well they are. They were responsible for carrying all the food, chairs, etc. Also, this was where we ate, and in the morning, we always had the choice of hot cocoa, coca tea, and regular types of tea.

llama!

We started to climb, and with my backpack on again, the individual steps were more difficult. Remind me not to be 230lbs anytime soon. However, the clear advantage of climbing more is that you get better views like the one above.

We also had to climb through caves, another thing that I did not expect from the inca trail. 

Sea of mist. When we got to the summit of one of the passes, we all commented on the "great view" because we could see a whole 30 ft in front of us.

that mountain just looked really cool

more caves, wet along the sides.

This is the guide, ramiro. With a fairly thick accent and a sprinkling of quechua names, it was pretty hard to understand/pay attention in the lectures about the various incan ruins. One quick and slightly funny anecdote. There was one incan ruin, not sure the name but  sounded like gibberish, gibberish gibberish, mama wanker giberish, and while I didn't get it at first, the british couple was chortling in the back. Also, it may be hard to believe, but he said he was over 60. That is impressive right there, because he put us to shame with a plodding but steady pace. He would wait for the people with altitude sickness.

incan ruins

apparently, machu picchu is home to orchids.

We had the option of taking detours to more incan ruins. We invariably went for more incan ruins, even though we walked an extra hour for them

These are the monkey steps, also known as the tourist killer. See ramiro just casually walking up. Yeah, the rest of us were using all 4's, thus the moniker monkey steps. I don't want to know why they were called the tourist killer

These monkey steps are probably some of the steepest we faced.

Our first view of machu picchu.

close up

I would definitely say that psychologically, this day was the easiest day. On the first day, you can turn back. It would be lame, but it is well within the realm of possibility. On the second day, you can still turn back, although now it gets rather tedious. But on the third day, it is literally closer to the end if you just keep going than if you turn back, adding a little incentive to our tired legs.

  The actual hiking on every day lasted for a while. With a brief intermission for incan ruins and lunch, we hiked from 6am to about 5 pm every day. On every day but the third, by the end you were like, this is beautiful and all, but I could really go for the tent right about now. On the third day however, rejuvenated with finally seeing machu picchu, it felt as if I was not tired at all. However, some in our group were just mentally done and wanted to get out. On our way from the sun gate where the above pictures of machu were taken, ramiro told us that we had two options, either walk for 2 hrs from machu to aguas calientes, or take the bus. He told us this at about 430, and the funny thing was that he said the last bus was at 5. Given that we were at least a good 30 minutes away, this put a spring in our step. We did make it, and with plenty of time to spare. I think Ramiro told us 5 as a way of incentivizing us to move faster, as we left on a bus at 5:20. Still, it felt great to be on that bus, and before I knew it, I was in aguas calientes. We were at a restaurant called machu pisco, and my banana milk shake simply tasted divine after all the trekking. Felly also joined us, which was exciting. He had just missed the departure to the Inca trail because he had booked his plane ticket to Quito rather than Lima, meaning he had about 50 some odd hours of bus. His bus was just a little bit later than expected, so he missed the transportation that I had set up.

 Next on the agenda was relaxing, hot showers, dinner and a ceremony recognizing the porters and soon I was off to bed. It was hard to sleep because we were placed right next to raging rapids and there was no window to separate the sound. It felt like as soon as I drifted off to sleep, I had a flashlight in my face, waking me up for our sunrise tour of machu picchu. 

It was worth it though, as I try(and perhaps fail) to portray in the following photos. I think in hindsight the reason that everyone should go for the early morning wake up is because the lighting is really cool, as well as the fact that there are only a few tourists, so it feels like you have this incan wonder to yourself. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. except in a few cases.

hawk chillin on a rock

so the incans built that rock as a facsimile of the mountain range behind it. I just thought it was really cool that Felly's hat also happened to line up with the mountain.

After about 4 hours hiking around machu picchu, felly and I were about done. We did the posing, we did the tour, we even explored for a little, but soon tourists flocked around, and I wanted to preserve in my mind that idea of machu picchu deserted, an incan jewel to myself. We headed back, ate some overpriced pizza, and played a pleasant game of hearts where I shot the moon (always an andrenaline pumping moment. And then, because we were in aguas calientes, literally hot water, we went to the hot springs.

The water was kinda grimy but felt good after so much trekking. Still, the fountains to wash off were much needed. A train and a bus later, we were in cusco, where we said goodbye to the group and I end this blog post.