Machu Picchu

Asleep by 830 up at 430a, out by 5 and on the train at 530a. These early morning schedules are becoming a habit. I´m always running on about a half a tank, of course big party night didn´t help. So I catch the train for Machu Pichu.
Here the first look at you get in the gate...
This ones for Reece where I get my physical therapy, his tee shirt and ya, I got pain man...

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I gotta admit they gave me an option of taking the "spanish language" tour or the "English tour" I´m embarrased to say... I took the english.. After yesterday (which was all spainish all hangover all day) my brain hurt just hearing the language. Machu Picchu blows any of the other inca sites away because the conquistidores never found it and destroyed it. Thats also why we know so little about it. Unlike other sites its 80% original. So I have tons of picures and I wont bore you with all of them. Here´s a little Machu Picchu rabbit I hope to see on the menu some day :-)


So the important thing here is that after you take the tour you have the option of climbing either Wayna Picchu, or Machu Pichu mountain. Here´s the top of Wayna Pichuand Machu Pichu Mountain.

They only let 400 people up Wayna Pichu so I opted for Machu Picchu Mountain and only saw 5 people all day. The road less traveled, always seems like a better choice. It went up a windy Inca trail...

and up some more...

Problem was I didn´t buy any water in town and the water they sell on the mountain is in 300 ml bottles for $3.33, so all I could find was 2 bottles of coca cola for hydration...


Feel free to notice the strong powerful biceps...

Finally I arrived at the top drenched in sweat. It didn´t help that that I carried all 25 pounds of ruksack (word borrowed from my english friends)on my back.

You can see how high the climb was by how small Machu Picchu looks in the lower right.

Going up was hard and it had to be at least afew thousand feet in vertical gain. But as hard as going up was, coming down was the bad news. I had the jimmy-leg the entire way and my knees are wrecked. But what a beautiful place!

Back into town, and back to Cusco. I know I´ve assimilated into the Peruvian culture when after getting off the van back from Machu Pichu my knees hurt so bad I would rather limp home then spend $1 on a taxi.

Pisco sours with Angel and Carlos and bed midnight. I spent my first night in a dorm room with three other people. That kind of sucks. Everytime somebody gets up to go to the bathroom, or tosses and turns they wake you up and vice versa im sure. Good thing I was only in there for 6 hours and it only cost 10 bucks.

Up at 6a at the airport by 7a just to get a flight delay of 4 hours due to weather. Turns out theres no radar in the airports in the interior of the country, so if the pilot cant see landing he doesn´t do it. LAN airlines cancelled 3 flights and my airline, TACA only had one flight in and out of there a day, so if they cancelled that one I wouldn´t make my connection in Lima.

But I made it and got a private room with bath for $30 back here at the good old flying dog... Tomorrow i´m on my way home and i´m sad to leave. You really need 3 weeks to do Peru right i´m convinced.Theres so much left too see, Colca canyon 10x bigger than the grand canyon, Nazca lines, arequipa, and lake titicaca (no i didn´t make that one up.)

Who´s ready to quit their job and travel South America with me? Anyone?