VIva el Peru 4

I'm beginning to question my rationality of writing my stories in 4 separate posts by now. 

Well, lets put it this way,

I will continue my Day 4 hiking story and then, everything else will be compressed in... maybe Viva el Peru part 5. Hehe. I just want to have a somewhat detailed recollection of my hike just in case in 5 months time I forgot what happened (very unlikely), so at least I can go back to these posts and read them again. Plus, if somebody were to google anything related to Peru (or anything else for that matter), my blog might showed up AND hopefully they find what they are looking for here! It happened already last week. Somebody googled about Peru and stumbled upon my blog :P

DAY 4 Machu Picchu, Here We Come! a.k.a Happy Birthday Mubeen!

We woke up very early that day. For me, by 2.30am...I wasn't sleeping properly already. Not because I was SOO excited (which I was) but the porters and cooks were already up and started to work. Dangg! Seriously, I had to give them a standing ovation for that! 

They woke us up with coca tea at 4am, I think. Ahh! They served us coca tea everyday after they woke us up. Man, that tea made me wide awake! 

Breakfast was at 4.30am and I think we had breads and pancakes. You can eat them with jam, butter, sugar or whatever you like. 

It was still dark, so we didn't leave Winay Wayna (Day 3 campsite) until 5.15am because it was dark and cold. By then we had to line up at the check point in order to enter the site. Even so, from there, it was a 2 hr hike to Machu Picchu. My legs were aching already :P 

Foggy morning! which is not a surprise anymore :)

mini inukshuks on a big rock, made by....i dont know who.

 More walking into the unknown shot. That's a cliff alright.

They were like what, 5m from me? and I can't hardly see them!

Nadia and Mubeen, partially hidden by the fog!

By now, we were already in the Machu Picchu site. Just that I don't even know that 'cause I can't see it for myself. But, we were greeted by llamas at the end of the Inca Trail! How scweeetttt! 

Hiram Bingham found Machu Picchu. He hiked the Inca Trail as well. Boy, I'm sure glad he found Machu Picchu! <--- I think the name sounds cute.

OK, we had to leave our big bags at the storage room and paid 3soles for it. I didn't have a small bag to carry all my personal items, so I just used my "towel" bag. Huh. That works. 

OMG, this is the highlight of my LIFE!! and I didn't even mean to exaggerate. Just cause it is ONE of the Seven Wonders of the WORLD (others being Taj Mahal, the Colosseum, Petra, Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza, Chichen Itza and Christ the Redeemer). I got the list from Wikipedia. So now I have another 6 wonders to go visit ;) 

Photos of Machu Picchu! 

Most of them are the same as my facebook album, lol

 

I'm proud of this shot :)

A view of Machu Picchu from the guardian house. 

The steep peak afar is Wayna Picchu. You could climb it if you wish, but luck wasn't on our side. We didn't know that in order to climb Wayna Picchu, you gotta get a stamp that says you are one of the first 400 people that day to climb it. We missed that one out :( Seems like a valid reason to go back, right? LOL. Anyways, if you have the chance to go to Machu Picchu, please don't miss this! So, that means....be there very early in the morning! Get your stamp and climb Wayna Picchu later that morning. 

Juan Carlos explaining to us the history.

These terraces that you can see in this this picture were used to plant crops (kinda obvious) and the ruins behind Juan Carlos were the houses back then.

The lonely tree. 

Ok, it was planted there for a reason. Don't quote me, but I remember that archaeologists found gold at that spot and so they planted a tree to commemorate that. 

Close-up of the ruins

Uneven staircase

Inside the houses 

Sofia, the ruins and a winding road. 

 

The river in the valley. This is looking down from Machu Picchu

The train tracks follow the river.

Team Sqrabbit - Mbn, Sofia and Giesung

and how does our fictional sqrabbit looks like??

Like this!!! :P

(credit: Mbn)

From a different angle. You can see the terraces better.

From a tunnel

(credit: Mbn)

 

Yours truly with Wayna Picchu as the background.

Gosh, the weather was perfect!! Remember it started as damn foggy?

US!

(credit : Mbn)

Hehe, I hardly have any pictures of myself in my own camera. 

Gotta ask the boys for photos of me :)

I love this shot!

(credit : Mbn)

Mereka!

Mbn, Zar, Sofia, Nadia and Giesung!

The path to the temple.

See the small structure up there? That's a sacred place during the Inca Empire 'cause  all the ceremony took place there (sacrifice etc). 

In the temple. Ok, sorry I forgot what this is but it is very important. The shadow cast by this rock is in the shape of llama!!!

The calm and very composed llama :)

The guardian house (for security purposes) located on top of the terraces.

Zar, rocky style! (can refer as Linda style too :P)

I may not have mention this, but they are fraternal twins! Just like me and Fardia!

Kami! 

Before saying goodbye to Juan Carlos! 

Gonna miss him for sure! Especially his "sexy llama" expression :P

Stamped in my passport :)

After spending all morning in Machu Picchu, we decided to go down to Aguas Calientes. The bus ride going down cost us USD7 or s/21. Well, if you must know, the route had lots of sharp turns! Luckily I didn't feel motion sickness or anything. Haiyaaa!

Aguas Calientes, very touristy...

Since we didn't eat proper food since 4.30am (I know!!), we went on a "food hunt". Darn, most of the restaurants were a lil pricey, but we eventually settled for a nice restaurant in the middle of town. My omelette was s/16 haha, but it was really good   --> lots of cheese!!  

Some photos around town:

Fancy restaurant. 

Nicely paved..OMG, I swore my knees were about to fall apart while climbing those stairs! Everybody felt like it! Oh dear. A good massage would be sooo amazing!

Bridge crosssssinngggg.... 

The riverrrrrr....

Some last minute shopping, anyone?

I did some shopping :P

Our train from Aguas Calientes to Ollaytaytambo was at 5.30ish. We spent some time "exploring" the town with our saket teramat kaki and then decided to just chill at the train station until it's time. The train ride was great! I sat next to Giesung, and we shared lots of stories, including some stories that cracked the hell out of me; I had to apologize for laughing so hard. But the bottom line is, he is a funny guy :) 

Arrived in Ollaytaytambo, and we had another 2hr bus ride back to Cusco. I slept all the way. Huh. 

We stayed at Walkon Inn again for a night. Anyways, I totally recommend this hostel to anybody going to Cusco. This should be in my first post, but I didn't really write in detail yet in that post. 

http://cusco.walkoninn.com/

The hostel looks exactly like in the photos on the website. So, if you like what you see, you will love this hostel. 

I wanted to post a video, but somehow it is not uploading :(

Ciao gators

FZ