Machu Picchu

So I finally made it to Machu Picchu. I had been wanting to go there for years and years. I took a train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes. I spent the day in the town. It was pretty small and there wasn´t too much to do besides go to the hot springs, and go to a museum. The museum just had some text on the walls about Machu Picchu. There weren´t any real artifacts or anything. It just made me more impatient about getting to Machu Picchu.

The next morning, I met with the people from the trek I was supposed to be on at 4:30am breakfast at the hotel. There were two other American girls that did the trek. At 5am we lined up to get on the first buses up to Machu Picchu. There was already a huge line. As soon as we got there, we rushed to get tickets to climb Huanya Picchu, the mountain in the background. They give out tickets to the first 400 people.

After we got our tickets for climbing Huanya Picchu, we walked around a bit and waited for our guided tour. Unfortunately we had to leave the tour early because we had our tickets to climb Huanyu Picchu at 10am. The climb to the top of Huanyu Picchu was challenging. There were many steps, and some were pretty small, narrow, and steep. It was a little scary in some parts. It took a total of abot 1hr45min to go to the top and back. It was well worth it because the view of Machu Picchu from the top was amazing.

Okay, a few facts about Machu Picchu. It is 2,430 metres (8,000 ft) above sea level. It is often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas". The Incas started building it around AD 1430 but was abandoned as an official site for the Inca rulers a hundred years later at the time of the Spanish Conquest. There are different theories as to why the city was abandoned. Luckily it was never found by the Spanish and consequently not plundered and destroyed, as was the case with many other Inca sites. An American, Hiram Bingham, discovered Machu Picchu by accident while trying to find another Incan city, Vilcabamba, in 1911. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction. The terraces were the agricultural zones. Each level had a different microclimate and grew different crops. The rest of the areas were the urban areas that had plazas, temples, an astronomical observatory, towers, and fountains.

I spent a pretty long time there just thinking, ¨Wow. I can´t believe I´m finally here.¨