Day 10: Machu Picchu!

This day has to be up there on the top of my list! We woke up at 4:30, ate a quick breakfast and got in line for the bus up to Machu Picchu. Even though we got to the bus stop at 5:30 the line was already super long and we were afraid we were going to miss the sunrise. We ended up having to wait for about 50 mins, but we still made it into the entrance of Machu Picchu right as the sun was coming over the mountain.  It’s hard to describe in words what Machu Picchu is like and no pictures really do it justice, but it is amazing!

We also had tickets for Machu Picchu Mountain, which is the taller of the two mountains overlooking Machu Picchu. Most people who do the additional Machu Picchu trail do Wayna Picchu (the other mountain), but I read a lot of trip reports and found that the mountain is a lot better because it is higher, a better view and less traveled.  It is about 1550 ft above Machu Picchu, so you have an incredible bird’s eye view. It was also cool because it was the opposite view of yesterday, so we feel like we’ve got to see Machu Picchu from all viewpoints.  That hike took a little over an hour up and about an hour down. We were glad we started right at 7:00 when it opened because it started to get a lot more crowded and hot as we were getting down to the bottom.

We also signed up for a guided group tour of Machu Picchu, so when we got down from the mountain we ate a picnic lunch and then met up with the tour.  We weren’t sure if we were going to like the tour, but we are really glad we did it because we learned a lot about the history of the place and the Inka culture. Our guide was great and the tour was super interesting.  Man were we beat at the end of the day though. The combo of the hike yesterday, getting up at 4:30, the hike today, a 2 hour walking tour and being in the sun for 8 hours totally drained us. We feel like we took full advantage of our trip to Machu Picchu though and it wouldn’t have been nearly as good without getting there early to beat a lot of the crowds, climbing the mountain and taking the tour, so we did it right and it was well worth it!

After getting down from Machu Picchu and grabbing our stuff at the bed and breakfast we headed out to catch our next train. This train took about 3 hours to get to our resort. Again, it was pretty cool though. They had a fashion show of Alpaca clothing and some traditional Inka dancers this time! Also, our hotel has it’s own private train stop, so that was pretty cool. The resort is absolutely amazing and of course we got an upgrade to a huge suite. When we got there, we got into our plush robes and stayed awake just long enough to order room service for dinner. They also brought us a tray of fancy desserts since I told them it was our honeymoon. This resort is the icing on the cake after the amazing day we had!