South American Adventures Part 2: Peru (Machu Picchu)

Time for one of my favorite parts of this trip: Machu Picchu!

We woke up at the crack of dawn on Monday, May 1st, packed up our luggage, and headed off to the train station in Ollantaytambo.

The train ride was only about an hour and a half long, and it was pretty entertaining along the way because of the the scenery. Gorgeous, rolling "hills" and little villages kept me and my camera busy :)

Before we knew it we were arriving in Machu Picchu Pueblo, or as many people call it, Aguas Calientes. Although technically Aguas Calientes is the name of the river that runs through the town, not the actually town.

As soon as we arrived, we met our tour guide and headed straight to Machu Picchu. To get to the ruins, you have to take a 20 minute bus ride up the mountain. This was no ordinary bus ride. There were many switchbacks, narrow 'roads', cliffs to almost fall over, and other buses to dodge along the way. It was interesting to say the least. Especially since the drivers are pretty fearless.

This is the route that the buses took up to the top

We finally made it (safely) to Machu Picchu and hopped off the bus to the entrance.

They checked our tickets and passports and then we were in! What's really cool is that they have a place where you can actually stamp your passport, saying you were in Machu Picchu. I love cute little memorabilia/souvenir things like that :)

So I thought that once we were through the 'gates' so to speak, we would be automatically met with the glorious views of Machu Picchu. That wasn't totally the case. We walk along the path, surrounded by some other gorgeous mountains, and then are met with ENDLESS stairs that twist and turn (okay so really they weren't that bad, I'm exaggerating a bit...) and make their way up to the beautiful, famous view of Machu Picchu. The climb was worth it. That view was breathtaking.

Duh I brought my terrible towel and busted it out in Machu Picchu. Steelers Nation!!

I am so in love with this place! For the rest of the morning Mom and I toured around Machu Picchu, visiting various spots and learning their significance from our tour guide. Our tour guide was awesome! She had pictures to go along with what she was saying (when the actual thing she was talking about wasn't right in front of us) and she made sure that mom and I got as many pictures together, with different views, as we wanted! Here are some pictures from our tour...

Once we had seen just about everything in Machu Picchu, she left us and mom and I were on our own! First stop: to see those wild llamas up close and personal :)

It's ridiculous how much I loved them. And how much they loved the Steelers...those animals have great taste in football teams ;)

After giving the llamas way too much attention, mom and I headed off on our hike for the day! We decided to hike up to IntiPunku, aka Sun Gate. This hike was part of the Inca Trail, so we're telling everyone that we hiked the Inca Trail....which is true, kind of. :) We started our hike at 12ish, after stripping down to shorts (the bathrooms were too far away so we decided to just find a 'selucded' place in Machu Picchu and change right there! Why not, right?) and chowing down on some cliff bars, we started our hike! It was HOT and being that it was the middle of the day and the sun was super bright didn't help much. But I guess I can't really complain because the weather was GORGEOUS with clear skies, so at least we could see Machu Picchu! This hike was much more difficult than we imagined. Maybe it's because it was so hot outside, maybe it was because of all the 'stairs', maybe it's because of the altitude, or maybe it's really just that mom and I are completely out of shape. Regardless of the reason, we were so excited to finally reach Sun Gate. And the views were breathtaking! It made every single part of that uphill hike totally worth it :)

We were all kinds of sweaty and nasty after hiking, so we decided to grab a cold one and head back down to the town.

And by cold one I meant a bottled water, located right next to the beer in a vending machine. But I was glad to know that the option of beer from a vending machine was there, just in case...

For the remainder of the afternoon mom and I decided to walk around Aguas Calientes and explore this small town. It's so small that they have one main "road" and no cars; only the buses that take people to and from Machu Picchu. Another thing about this town, NOT ONE PART OF IT IS FLAT! You're either walking up or you're walking down. Needless to say that after that hike mom and I were sick of hills and flat out exhausted. So we parked it at a restaurant and grabbed some food, beer, and water and people watched. Perfection. Oh and there was also soccer on TV so ya know that was kind of entertaining. Especially since these people go craaazy over their soccer.

The rest of the night was uneventful. We had a mediocre dinner at our hotel and walked the streets at night, listening to live music, before heading off to bed. We had another early morning at Machu Picchu the next day!

But this time, when we reached the gorgeous, famous views of Machu Picchu, we were met with this...

Well HELLOO fog. You're pretty. What that picture should really look like, without the fog, is this:

Awesome. Honestly though, my mom and I weren't too bummed about it. We found it quite comical. And since we'd already seen the real view the previous day, we didn't mind :) In fact it was kind of nice. It was quieter since it was early (and foggy) so there weren't that many people there yet, and there were so many birds flying around...it was beautiful. Very peaceful. We spent some time walking around, then parked it on one of the terrasses and sat down to enjoy our surroundings and watch the fog slowly shift and lift off of the mountains.

That little break in the fog is where mom and I hiked the day before. 

That morning at 10am, we were supposed to hike Huayna Picchu mountain, but in the end decided against it. Although half of me is wishing we would have at least tried it, I'm not too upset with our decision. Even though the fog had cleared up significantly, it was still pretty off and on foggy (so really, what would we have even seen from the top anyway?), due to the fog sitting so low things were kind of wet, so the path would have been slippery (and dangerous!), and to be honest, mom and I sort of chickened out. BUT it's a-okay because we had a perfectly nice relaxing morning before heading back down to Aguas Calientes to catch the train back to Cusco :)

We even had a chance to see the natural hot springs. They were...impressive? I thought natural hot springs would look a little more natural, but oh well!

We ended our day in the town with a deeelicious (grilled ham and cheese sandwich) lunch from El Mapi hotel and then hopped on the train to start our next journey!

Next up: Iguazu Falls!!!!

Happy Saturday, friends!

Have a wonderful, sun-filled weekend :)

B.Hines

*Photos Copyright Brittany Hines