Machu Picchu

After a 3 hour train ride, I arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes, where I stayed for one night.  It's a small town where you can walk from one side to the other in about ten minutes, but being the closest town to Machu Picchu, is really touristy and expensive. It's pretty telling when half of the prices in town ate listed in USD instead of soles.

The next morning, I went up to Machu Picchu with family friends (Ellen, Don, Sasha, and Shamus) from SF; the older of the kids (Sasha) just graduated high school, and really wanted to see this as his graduation present.

And despite the $50 ticket, the $150 train ride, and the $25 bus ticket from Aguas Calientes, Machu Picchu did not disappoint.  Don, Sasha, and I first went up Huayna Picchu, a nearby summit with one of the best views of the Machu Picchu ruins. Online it is described as a straight shot up, but it's just a lot of stairs. The stairs can be a bit dangerous if you're not careful though.

At the top, you can see the ruins, but also a beautiful sight of the surrounding mountains. It's absolutely humbling to see such a grand and beautiful set of mountains.

After, we descended and found the others (including Ellen's sister and family) and I wandered the ruins with Ellen and Sasha. The town was likely never abundant in resources, plus relied a lot on forced labor, so the set up of the town was mostly made to function, with little emphasis on art.  The temple to the sun god was small and carved out from rock, in contrast to most of the houses, built of stone.  The most impressive feat was the building of rock brick houses with nothing holding the rocks together; they were likely grinded strategically to fit perfectly together.

There's an additional trail, the tail end of the Inca trail, which is where most shots of Machu Picchu you see online are taken.  I didn't have time to hike up though.  The "cheapest" train to Cusco was leaving soon.