We woke up at 4am, packed our bags, had breakfast, and took off to Machu Picchu. We started our hike from the campsite to the checkpoint very early on. We queued up. I think we were one of the later groups in line. By the time we got to the checkpoint, it was light enough to hike without a torch.

Imagine this...a line of backpackers hiking - that´s what we were. Everyone was hiking so damn fast, it was hard to keep up...but I did not want to be the person who kept up the line, so I just keped trucking! I´ve never hiked so fast.

When it got light outside, all you could see were clouds. Our first pitstop was to the Sun Gate. Just before the Sun Gate, there was a mad scramble up these really steep Incan steps! It was absolutely crazy! I was using my hands and feet to climb up the stairs, at some points, I felt like I was going to fall backwards, because of the weight of my pack! A tad bit intimidating, that is for sure!

From the Sun Gate, you can get a look at Machu Picchu -- when the weather is right! All we could see was a cloud! Well, since we couldn´t see anything, we just kept on going...

We finally got to the outskirts of Machu Picchu. Ironically enough, it seemed a bit anticlimactic getting there. Four days of stinking sweat, rain, cold nights...we were all pretty weary. But it was definitely a beautiful site.

We arrived before the train, so it was pretty much people who hiked the Inca Trail or people who stayed the night in Aguas Calientes.

Juan gave us a 2 hour guided tour of various parts, such as the Sun Temple, a cave, a place where mummies were stored, a condor looking area, etc...

Sandy, John, Eric, and Sharon went to climb Huayna Picchu. I was pretty tired of hiking, so Kristen and I hung around Machu Picchu. The others went to Aguas Calientes.

Kristen and I walked around, met some other people from Berkley. Then we decided to start heading back. We got lost in Machu Picchu!! We could not find our way to the exit. We ran into 4 other backpackers who had just climbed Huayna Picchu. Two of them were jumping from terrace to terrace, meters away! I was like..nope, not doing that! The other two went the way we did. We all eventually found the exit.

Kristen and I were going to take the bus, out of laziness, but when we found out that it was $4.50 US, we were like..that´s expensive!! So we hiked all the way down to Aguas Calientes...in an hour (supposed to take 1.5 hours). Oh, that $4.50 didn´t sound so bad after a while!! It was all stairs, straight down!!!

We had lunch in Viajeros hostel at 2pm. It was quite good, and I was starved as well!

We took the backpacker train to Cusco at 3:55pm. It was a quite nice train. I sat with Sandy, Claire, Ravi, and across the aisle from us was Steve, Ruth, Saz, and Kristen. There were card games going on, and towards the end, stretching exercises!

That night, I stayed at Sati´s hostel in San Blas so that we could go out to celebrate. We all met up after 10pm at Paddy O´Flaherty´s, had some dinner, and then went to Mama Africa´s to party on down.

It was a crazy crazy night. I am so convinced that something may have been slipped into my drink as I only remember the beginning of the night and the end, and only had several drinks. I remember at the end, I was a bit crazy. Sandy and I were dancing on the bar, and ripping flags off the cieling and stuffing them down her shirt. I stuffed 2 down my pants as well. We left after that. The bouncer caught Sandy, with her shirt stuffed full, and put his hand up her shirt, to get the rest! We went to find a cafe, and chilled out for a few. It was around 6am, and I still felt really really drunk and out of it. Shit, the sun was coming up, and SAS was supposed to pick me up at 7am!

Anyways, we caught a cab back to San Blas, while Sandy decided to walk back. I puked black sludge, packed my bags, and then we had to go. Since SAS didn´t sent a car, we took a cab that dropped me off at the Plaza de Armas. Luckily enough, the SAS office was opened, so I got my ticket to Puerto Maldonado, and went off to the airport. What a crazy night!