Next morning we got up relatively early to have a quick breakfast (bread and tea) and a short hike to the buses up to Machu Picchu. The reason that this site was not destroyed by the conquering Spanish is because the Incas destroyed the trail leading here.
In the early 1900’s a British researcher named Hiram Bringham was looking for the lost golden city of the Inka’s and was taken to Machu Picchu by a young boy from a neighboring village. It was overgrown with trees and he did not find gold so on his first trip he was not convinced – but future trips convinced him and he is credited with discovering the site.
We entered the site with many, many people today including our guides…
It was very overcast at this time of the morning with mist and clouds. One thing at this site is that the weather can change from minute to minute. We still had our rain gear handy and we needed it..
We stopped on one of the terraces and Jesus gave us some background and an overview of the site. In the background to the left you can see the temple of the sun…
Our first stop was the temple of the sun; one of the most important religious places on the site.
You can understand the significance of this place by care that was taken with the stone. You can see how the stones for this temple had no mortar between the stones and how the stone work was was of much higher quality.
The double doorways into the temple area were also characteristic of leading into a religiously significant room or area.
Next we moved up some steps into the quarry. It is the area on the hill that they used to harvest the stones for all of this construction and buildings
As we walked forward we walked through the Condor Temple. The Condor is one of the three revered animals at the Inka sites. On the floor they carved the rock to look like the beak or head of the Condor..
and behind the rocks angled up toward the sky with the black pigment are the wings spread open..
Next we walked into an open meeting area on one side was this room..
On the other side was this lookout room into the valley…the stones here were so perfectly cut and placed..
Outside this meeting area was a great look at the peak behind called Wayna Picchu. There is also an Inka site up there that we did not climb to because of time. To the left of us is the observatory..
On the highest point is the observatory, so we climbed the steps to see what is up there…
In this room was this giant sundial and it is clear from the look around why this sundial would be up here…
After climbing down from the observatory, we entered this area that was used for classrooms…
Climbing from here to the top took some work but we gained this great other perspective of the site..
and then we learned that there was another trail that led to an Inka bridge and so we hiked on.
the hike wasn’t long, just up and down…
Here is Sara at the Inka bridge. The story is told that it was constructed so the wood could be taken off and any enemies could not jump across the expanse without falling down the cliff..
If you would like to take your own tour here is a walking tour of the site…
Machu Picchu Tour
Our time was done here so we went to the bus and took it down to Aqua Caliente and boarded a Peru rail train for the start of our hike. The train was very comfortable..
The path of the train followed the Urubamba River that we could see many times on our hike..
We exited the train with our gear, loaded into the bus and were taken back to Cusco to our host hotel…
That night Jesus took us to an amazing Peruvian Steakhouse called UCHU. We had some great steak and….
We had all been hearing about how Guinea Pig was a delicacy eaten by the locals on special occasions and since we all had finished the hike it was time to give it a try. It was very moist and frankly tasted like chicken. We all shared one… but is was an experience..
The next morning we said our good buys to our new friends and were off to our hostel and a short stay in Cusco before going home…
We had booked at the Pirwa backpackers hostel on the far side of the main square..
It was mostly open air inside with room around courtyards..
our room was private and inexpensive and came with showers and a continental breakfast…
On our last day we did some sight seeing in Cusco. First we took a free walking tour…
One cool thing that we saw and paid to go into was this church. Back in the height of the empire here it had been an Inka temple…
but the Spanish literally build a cathedral around the temple. Here you can see the inner columns of the cathedral with the temple stone walls inside…
We also went to a small cooking demonstration at a local restaurant and of course Sara volunteered to help with the preparation…
One last question before we go for home.. Can you tell which one is the Llama and which one is the Alpaca?
Spoiler alert – The Alpaca is on the left and the Llama is on the right… Llama’s are great at high altitudes and used for carrying supplies. The Alpaca wool is extremely soft and very high priced when made into clothing..
It was an amazing trip and we met some great people, we can’t wait to travel again…
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