This morning we went back to Machu Picchu. We left the group to do our own hike. Sandra is still sick, but she feels better in the mornings. We decided to walk slowly and see how much she could do. We first went up to where our assistant guide Freddy said was the best photo spot. It was a beautiful spot. Here's a photo of us from that spot.
Then we kept going up. We'd go up 5-10 steps and then rest a while. We figured if we got too tired, we could just turn around. We're over more in the agricultural section of Machu Picchu rather than the temple section where we were yesterday, which gives us great views of the rest of the complex. Sometimes we were climbing through more jungle-like growth as the photo below shows.
After a while, we made it to the cross-roads where we decided to climb towards the Sun Gate. The Sun Gate is the entrance to Machu Picchu from the Inka Trail which goes over the mountains 26 miles. On the summer solstice the sun comes up in the cleft between two ridges where the Sun Gate is. (On the winter solstice, the sun comes up in a cleft between two other peaks.) You can see this cleft on the far left of this photo from the entrance to Machu Picchu. If you enlarge the photo, you might be able to see the trail angling up from the right up to the cleft.
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| The Sun Gate from Machu Picchu entrance |
The trail to the Sun Gate is mostly pretty wide and paved with stone. Still, it's pretty steady uphill. We continued our slow pace and tried to sit and rest in the shade every so often. We both expected it to be chilly up here early in the day, but by 9am when we started, it was already very warm and humid. We saw some beautiful views of Machu Picchu and the surrounding areas, including Agua Calientes way down in the narrow valley between the mountains. Along the way, we saw terraces tucked into little spaces on the mountain. It's really amazing how the terraces allowed the Inkas to use every bit of space. The photo below shows us at an Inkan structure way up on the trail to the Sun Gate with Machu Picchu far below.
On the way up, we passed some of our tour mates who had started at the same time we did and who were coming down. They gave us some encouragement and we kept going. The last little bit had some pretty rough stairs and "beautiful views" (steep drop-offs), but at last we made it to the Sun Gate and had beautiful views of the Machu Picchu and also the mountains on the other side of this ridge. We spent a few minutes just resting at the top and then took photos to show we made it.
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| At the Sun Gate. Machu Picchu below |
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| At the Sun Gate. Machu Picchu below |
In the photo of Machu Picchu below taken from the Sun Gate, you can also see the windy road we had to take up the mountain to get there.
We started back down and the sky was clouding over. We worried a little bit about there being a thunderstorm, but there never was and we appreciated the cooler air for the walk down. It took us about 2 hours to get up to the Sun Gate, but only an hour coming back. Going downhill is a lot easier and for the most part this is a good stone paved trails, except for the places with those rough stairs with beautiful views. When we got back down to the Machu Picchu complex, I couldn't believe we were back so fast. Then there were all the stairs back down to the entrance. But we were pretty exhiliarated that we had made the hike and back.
After that we rode the bus back to Agua Calientes. We had asked Freddy to draw us a map of how to get back to the hotel, because the times we had gone before with the guides seemed so hard to remember. He assured it was easy and straight (which it really wasn't), but we did manage to find our way back to the part where it is straight to the hotel. We stopped at a little restaurant for lunch and then wandered in the huge mercado there finding some things to hang on our seasonal tree.
Needless to say we are pretty worn out. We had a great day and feel like we really got to experience Machu Picchu. Sandra held up, although she was pretty worn out (as was I). We went to our room, showered, put on robes and decided we would have room service for dinner. The tour dinner starts at 8pm and that's really too late for us to eat as we are usually getting into bed to read at about 8:30-9. It's especially hard when we are so exhausted.
Tomorrow we have the morning here and we haven't decided yet what to do. But we don't have to get up early and that is nice. Then we head back to Cuzco in the afternoon.
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