Machu Picchu - Part 1

Bright and early hopped on the Peru Rail train to Aguas Calientes, located at the base of Machu Picchu.  Upon boarding saw our seats were on the less scenic side of the train... Ruben was a rock star and got us the money seats located in the very first row - with a huge window and unobstructed view of the train as it rolled forward.  It was like we were the conductors!

8:45am "The Great Moment has Arrived", as stated by the train announcer.  Disembarked and hopped on a bus to head straight up the mountain.  Spent the afternoon touring Machu Picchu - we lucked out with plenty of sun; at least that is what we thought until we started actually hiking the site haha  So hot and humid!  But it was breathtakingly beautiful, not sure my photos will be able to do it justice...

Glorious

Wayna (or Huayna or Young Peak) Picchu is the mountain in the background, and we will not be getting up at 3:30am to stand in line for two hours to be one of the 400 people a day that does the strictly vertical climb up.  HA.  But we did hike down into and around the site itself, and tomorrow will be going back to do a less psychotic hike to the Sun Gate.  After touring the ruins all we can say is that we are glad we were not a part of the construction crew ;)

After spending about three hours wandering about we had a delicious, well-deserved lunch and then headed to our fabulous eco-hotel.  Putzed about the local market for an hour or so and now in for the night - another day full of hiking tomorrow!

woot woot