Adventures in Peru: Day 5 - Machu Picchu here we come (Day 4-Weds)

Our last day of hiking was here. We got our wake up call with our coca tea at 4am, had a light breakfast, and were on the trail by 5am to pass through the next checkpoint. Today would be an "easy" hike according to Boris, about 2.5 hours, mostly downhill with some uphills. Well that's good, I think all of our legs were feeling a little rubbery from the past days hikes.

It was pitch black when the hike began, we made our way down the trail using flashlights/headlamps. A little tricky (and scary) as it was harder to see the steps and make sure we had our footing in certain areas. I could tell my legs were exhausted from the past days of hiking up and down hills. For the most part, the hike was pretty easy, though I did slow down on some of the uphills. There was one section that was a huge staircase up, yikes more stairs, which took us a while to climb up...it seemed it was almost vertical, we had to take one step at a time.

But it was all worth it, we were at Intipunku ("sun gate") and were treated to the most spectacular view of Machu Picchu for the first time, it was amazing! We were right on top of it practically, it was so beautiful and we were told we were lucky to be able to see it as a lot of the time, it is covered by clouds. Those who take the train aren't as lucky to get a view of Machu Picchu from this perspective unless they are willing to make the long hike uphill from the bottom. It felt so good to have made it to this point after all the pain and suffering of the past days hikes.