Machu Picchu!

Today was Machu Picchu day, our big tourist day. It was an early day, 5:00an wake-up. Machu Picchu isn’t something you drive right up to and see. It’s remote and requires a day’s journey to reach. It began with s two hour bus ride. When they concluded, we were in an entirely different looking part of Peru. The mountains rose far steeper than the ones surrounding Cusco, and the tops were shrouded in fog. Despite its steepness, everything was completely green. We then boarded a train, a rather nice one, that took us to the final bus. While we were riding the bus, we saw ruins appear on the mountain side. We arrived and walked in with our tour guides. The more we journeyed, the more we got a sense of the scale of the city. Machu Picchu is split into different sectors, each with a purpose. Irrigation canals line the floors, still carrying rain water to this day. The iconic view of Machu Picchu we did not see until the very end. Two groups then departed, one that took the bus down the endless switchbacks road, one that ran down the jungle-lined mountainside trail 4000 vertical feet all the way back to the village. After descending the mountain, the two groups rendezvoused at the bus stop and proceeded to eat dinner at a buffet. Once the meal ended, everyone broke off to peruse the shops in the town. Once we regrouped, we began the long journey back to our accommodations in Cusco.

-Joseph