Peru - PART IV - Machu Picchu

To begin – Today was April 26. Today was Jason’s Birthday. Today, Jason turned 34.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JASON!

So, climbing up a mountain the day before going up to visit ruins on top of a really huge mountain might not have been the brightest of ideas. I was sore, and Machu Picchu has stairs. A lot of stairs.

But it was also pretty awesome. We took the backtracker train up, and they gave us snacks. It took about an hour and a half. Along the way, you could see other ruins dotting the landscape, the mountains, farms… then we loaded onto buses and rode switchbacks up, up, up to the site.

You can see the terraces in the back there.
This is part of the Inca Trail.

We took a guided tour through Machu Picchu, and saw pretty much all of it, even if we didn’t set foot on all of it. It was tiring, even for people who didn’t go climbing the day before.

The side of the mountain on which Machu Picchu sits.

The other side: Buildings, terraces, and
the faultline running down the middle.

We had a little time to do what we wanted after the tour, so we decided to sit down and enjoy the scenery and eat a little lunch. Many other people were settling down on the terraces and just hanging out or, in some cases, taking naps, so... But, a few minutes later, a man in uniform came by with a whistle and shooed us away.

That was the cue that it was probably time to start looking for the exit. It wasn’t far from where we were, and we were soon on a bus winding down the mountain, then back on the train. One of our New Friends bought Jason a birthday cerveza.