October 7, 2009

Today was our tour of Machu Piccu. We rose bright and early to catch an early bus to the entrance where we were to meet up with the guys. It was fun to see the sun come through the mountains and eventually see Machu Piccu lit up in the morning sun. The guys had just gotten to the meeting spot right before we got there. They looked shot! They said the hike was hard (Chuck, Chad and Joel thought it was harder than Kilimanjaro). The terrain started on a dirt trail but eventually came to the stone Inca Trail. There was a lot of up and down each day. On the last day the rose very early, 3:45am, in order to try to get from the camp ground to the Gateway of the Sun at sunrise. It sounds like they were speed walking borderline running to get there. I guess all the groups did the same thing. I will ask Chad to put together a blog post that summarizes the trek.

Their trail guide was our Machu Picchu guide. We had two ours guided and a few hours to wander the park on our own. It was great to have a tour guide to tell us about the history and other facts of the Inca Empire. The Inca’s started building this site around 1430 AD but it was abandoned as the official site of the Inca rules at the time of the Spanish conquest. Since Machu Picchu was located so far away from Cusco, the Inca capital, it was never found by the Spanish and consequently not destroyed as most of the Inca sites were. Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911 and has been was listed as “Historical Sanctuary” in Peru in 1971 and designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983. I understand why it is listed as one of the seven wonders of the world. It is truly AMAZING and no photo I have ever seen does it justice.