machu picchu

the guidebook said that it would take two hours to hike up to machu picchu. the locals said it would take 1 hr 40 min. amazingly, it only took us 1 hr 15 min to reach the top. i think we were both so excited to see the sunrise that we didn´t let the fast climb tire us too much. also, it was early morning so it wasn´t too hot yet. my first thought coming up over the hill to see machu picchu up close for the first time was that it was much bigger than i had imagined. the pictures make it look a lot smaller than it is and i realized why... the place to take the famous picture (like the one above) is so high above the ¨city¨area that it looks much smaller. when you´re actually in the ¨city¨area, though, you can easily get lost. we spent hours there looking at every part of it, getting lost in it. it´s so absolutely astounding to think about the work that went into building it. more than anything else that amazes me is that the supreme inca simply had to order it done and it was done. i´m sure many lives were sacrificed for it to be built, but it was built nonetheless and was built magnificently. the stone architecture is so clean, so precise. my favorite part was the rock garden. even though all the stones were uncut, it was nice to see what they had to work with... where they started before creating each individual piece of stone to fit wherever it needed to fit. it was truly one of the most stunning things i´ve ever seen... and to think i didn´t want to go because it was too touristy. for some reason, all the pictures i´ve seen of it didn´t take away from the shock of seeing it up close. the only thing that bothered me was that at least two-thirds of the people there had taken the train from cusco and taken the bus up the hill. it bothered me a little that i had struggled and toiled for a week to get there and others had simply walked up to it. oh well... it felt good to see it after so much work. it made it that much more special and the journey to get there was equally amazing.

well, that was the first trek in full... tomorrow we´ll be embarking on another trekking adventure and i may not be able to write again for up to 10 days. we will be doing a complete circuit around ausangate, which is the highest mountain in the cusco region. the trek should take one week, but getting there and getting away will be somewhat of a challenge and for sure it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find a computer. after the trek, we will be heading to puno, peru and then straight over to copacabana, bolivia. from here we will start the isla del sol trek on lake titicaca. that should be an easy trek, but definitely very beautiful. i´m very excited about the upcoming treks and i hope to post about them soon! thanks for reading about my exciting summer adventures!!!