Machu Picchu

Day 1

Lil, John and I left Cusco at 6am to begin a long and bumpy car ride with our group to get to the starting point for our mountain biking. The countryside was absolutely phenomenal and even though I'm not a morning person I forced myself to stay awake to see the views. On our way up the mountain we ran into a fairly serious landslide which forced us to start biking sooner than we had expected-- The entire road was blocked by a giant mass of rock but we expertly manuevered it on the bikes. Unfortunately the weather was awful (very cold and wet) when we began our descent into the jungle but after freezing our butts off for over an hour the humidity and heat of the jungle warmed us up (almost like a hot tub). After 4 hours of windy mountain road biking we came to our end destination-- a small jungle village where we picked up some beers and snacks for the road, got back on the bus and drove to Santa Maria for lunch. Lunch was a delicious Peruvian classic--lomo saltado-- it was nice to get some warm food after a very damp morning. The next adventure on the agenda-- white water rafting-- another cold and wet one! Having never been rafting before, I wasn't sure what to expect. We went on level 4 rapids and I fell out of the raft (on purpose) -- it was exhilarating and the jungle river was gorgeous. After finishing this excursion we had to change quickly and get in a cramped taxi to Santa Teresa that took us on a hair pin turn, roller coaster mountain road that was terrifying. Thank goodness it was dark! We had alpaca steaks for dinner along with refreshing pisco sours! What a feast!

Day 2

Another very early start but this time with chocolate banana pancakes-- yum! We headed out to the ziplining place and started our zipping which included 6 lines and a suspension bridge. The scenery was incredible-- mountains, the jungle and a beautiful river valley. A few of the ziplines were a bit scary because of the height! We stopped for lunch in a small town and then began our 12km trek to Aguas Callientes. The hike was through the jungle and along a river-- we saw many waterfalls, orchids, and different birds. Upon arrival in Aguas Callientes all of us napped and rested at our hostel until dinner-- no hot showers unfortunately. After dinner we went straight to bed because at 3:30am the hike to Machu Picchu began!

Day 3

- 2,000 stairs at 4am to Machu Picchu

- 3,000 stairs at 11am to Machu Picchu Mountain lookout

Crazy climbing, this was the most challenging hike of my life! Steep and narrow stairs that went straight up-- had our calves and thighs burning after a few hours.

Machu Picchu-- what a wonder-- it was phenomenal! Indescribable! We had a lovely tour with our guide (Ronny), learned about the site and explored-- it was gigantic!