RTW 2011: Day 6
We had to get up at 4:20 am for our Machu Picchu journey. Had to is a little bit of of a strong word, but we were up so early so that we could get to Machu Picchu when it first opened in the morning. We were in line by 5:10 am, queuing up for the buses. There were so many people in line already, our guide said they had been there all night. Crazy.
We got onto the bus and it was still dark, the sky started to lighten as we rode up the mountain. Then we were there and Celso, our guide, led us through the ruins, explaining things as we went through. After touring through the different temples and regions of the city for an hour and a half, Celso left us to explore on our own. We wandered around the city a little bit longer, and decided to climb up the trail to the Sun Temple. We hiked and hiked until I was exhausted and had blisters. We only made it up half way before we called it quits, but we did get some fabulous pictures at least. I was very impressed by all of the old men and woman hiking their way back down from the top, when I was calling it quits half way. I had visions before this trip of hiking the Inca Trail. That is definitely not something I intend to ever do now. I now classify it under things that people do to push themselves farther than they could possibly imagine: like hiking the entire Appellation Trail, or competing in a decathlon, or swimming across the Channel. I am not that hard core.
Josh and I walked back down from the halfway point and headed back to Aguas Calientes. We had lunch at another restaurant, then hung out for the afternoon in an wifi internet coffee shop. We ate a banana split and drank tea while we caught up on some of our computer things before catching the 4:45 pm bus back to Cusco. Another three hour train ride and back to our hotel, ready to fly back to Lima in the morning.