Peru: Day Seven

Machu Picchu!!! This is the day I had been waiting for all week. There are so many interesting things about Machu Picchu, so I really recommend you read the Wikipedia article. There are also some cool long distance shots on the article, including one of the road the bus takes up to Machu Picchu.

We took a train to the town just outside Machu Picchu, as no roads are allowed through the canyon. It was a three hour ride, featuring some really cool zig-zag railroad technology to get through the canyon. At one point, the train went backwards and forwards to go lower in the canyon. It was really interesting, and a really pretty ride.

Once we arrived at the base town, if you will, we had buy our tickets, which were really expensive. About 150 American dollars, which was practically more than we had paid for the rest of the trip since landing. I believe we bought a ticket for Machu Picchu, and then a separate one for the bus (the blue picture below) Totally worth it, though. We took the bus up to Machu Picchu, which took about twenty minutes. This was also a gorgeous ride. Machu Picchu is located in a very rainforest-y area.

We arrived at Machu Picchu, and Bergs found us an English speaking guide to take us through. His name was Alain, and he was quite fantastic. He took us over to a table and stamped a Machu Picchu stamp in my passport, which I thought was pretty cool.

Before I go to the pictures, I'll just finish out the day. We were pretty exhausted, so we just went back to hotel and had a dinner of granola bars and crackers (we did that a lot on the trip), and I washed my hair, which was wonderful.

I know it's a ton of pictures, but it was all so fantastic.

 Dramatic llama looks out over his kingdom...

 Alain was really cool about taking pictures for us. He even pointed out all the great spots for photos.

 This is the embalming room. The Incas believed in rebirth, so they buried their bodies in the fetal position.

 They believe this to be a baptismal font, just below the temple.

 These were used to track the position of the sun.

 More embalming room...I think.

 The condor, which was the messenger to the upper world. The Incas also believed that the jaguar ruled the earth we live on, and that the snake was for the world below.

 I got a little artsy on a staircase going below the grass line.

 This is the temple on the very top of the mountain. There were three buildings with three walls.

 This is an example of the original rock left from carving Machu Picchu out of the mountainside.

 They call this "the quarry". It's what the whole mountain looked like before the city was built.

 A long way down...

These are the flowers at the train station.