Inca trail, day 4 and Machu Picchu
Day 4, the last day of the Inca trail does not involve much hiking on the trail, only about 2 hours and then you are in Machu Picchu. However, you wake up at 3:45 to be waiting in a queue at the checkpoint 5 minutes from camp when it opens at 5:30. None of that was fun. From there, it’s and hour hike up to the sun gate, all before sunrise. Arriving at the sun gate was anticlimactic since instead of the majestic view of Machu Picchu there was a large cloud.
As the sun started to peak it’s way over the tops of the mountain peaks, the clouds slowly started to clear giving us little snapshots of the mountaintop city in the distance.
From the sun gate it’s about 45 minutes hiking downhill to reach Machu Picchu, numerous great views along the way, peaking with the one when you reach the high outer edge of the city. Mission accomplished!
After the obligatory photo shoots up here and some formalities we headed into the main part of the city. Firstly for a boring tour led by the guide, 1 1/2 hours, and then we were free to explore on our own. Unfortunately we couldn’t climb Huayna picchu, the iconic mountain sticking up directly behind the city of Machu Picchu, because the limit of climbers for the day had already been reached. So we just spent several hours exploring the 15th century city. Numerous houses, temples, farming terraces, storehouses, staircases, sacred stones, fountains, the quarry where they got the stones from and even one sacrifice stone are all here to see and I was amazed at how much of our group didn’t hang around much after the very basic and uninformative tour by our guide. I hiked for 45km to get here through the freakin Andes, I’m going to spend at least a few hours here now that I made it. The weather was gorgeous, almost a little to hot even!
After exhausting ourselves walking all over Machu Picchu for several hours, we headed down into the valley on the bus to the base camp town of Aguas Calientes to meet back up with our group at the hostel we were staying in that night and have lunch there. A glorious shower followed lunch, then a trip to the, warm (I wont call them hot) springs to relax. Some drinks in the evening and dinner, then passing out after an incredibly long and rewarding day.
Tags: Peru, Travel
Adam
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