la playa to llactapata

this was my least favorite day of the trek, except for the very end. it was cool to see the inca ruins and our campsite at the end was great, but everything in between pretty much sucked for me. it was a very steep ascent that never quite seemed to end and it was incredibly hot. i was literally soaked in my own sweat and covered in dirt. i was so tired, hot, and dirty that i had a really hard time enjoying the trek. finally, when we reached the 10,000 ft pass, we entered a shady area and began to descend. we knew we were getting close to our campsite when we started to hear voices through the trees. then the closer we got the more it sounded like a soccer game was underway. sure enough, when we got there we saw a bunch of local guys playing soccer on the one little area of flat ground on the whole mountain. they looked bummed since our camp would end up ruining their game, so we told them to continue while we watched. then we noticed how beautiful the view was from that spot. you could see two snow-capped peaks, plenty of jagged green mountains, and then we saw it for the first time in the distance: machu picchu. in the second picture above, at the center, is machu picchu from our campsite. it´s hard to see in the picture, but in person it was quite clear and astounding. in the morning we woke up to it and watched the sun rise over the mountains behind it. it was a spectacular site! the only drawback of this campsite was the ridiculous number of gnats gnawing at every available piece of flesh they could reach. i tucked my pants into my socks and pulled my hood tight around my head, but still i was attacked. kevin and i both are covered in horrible bug bites, as were all the people we saw thereafter anywhere in the vicinity of machu picchu.