Sixteen days after we left Buenos Aires and 73 hours between 10 different buses, we finally made it to Machu Picchu.  This day was what kept us positive about our decision to take the bus instead of a direct flight to Lima.

After a quick 30 minute accent from the bus stop, we met with our group for our 2 hour guided tour.  The view from up top was incredible, but it took about an hour before the fog cleared enough to actually get a full view of the ruins and surrounding mountains.










In addition to touring around the the ruins of Machu Picchu, there are a few optional paths for the more adventurous .  The most popular is to climb Huana Pcchu, the mountain most often seen in pictures behind Machu Picchu. Because of the narrow path to it's summit, they have limited to number of people on the mountain at a time to 200 at 7am and another 200 at 10am. Because of this limitation people race to the entrance of park in order to get a stamp which is required to be one of those elusive climbers. In order to make the cut, we were informed that we had two options. Either be waiting in line 2.5 hours early (3am) for the first shuttle up which leaves 5:30am or hike up the hill at 4:30am when the bridge at the bottom is opened. For our sanity, we decided not to risk waking up at 2:30 and being tired all day, let alone the disappointment if we didn't make the cut.  We later spoke with a group from our Sacred Valley tour who did wake up at 2:30 and had the line cut off 11 people in front of them.  Another couple we talked to made the hike from the bridge and did make it before the cutoff.

After our tour concluded, we spent the rest of our time on two of the other optional paths with an Irish couple from our tour.

1) Inka Bridge (40 minute walk each way)



2) We climbed the actual mountain of Machu Picchu, which is actually much higher but not as popular because it isn't as slim and photogenic. The original name of the city is unknown so it uses the same name as the mountain on which it was built and is only about a 1/3 of the way up the mountain.  As you start up the mountain, you are required to sign in before you pass (so they know if they need to look for anyone at the end of the day). There was no indication of how long it should take, but the names in front of us had a sign in and out time of only 15-30 minutes (and one included a frown face).  We asked the first person we saw coming down how long it should take us.  They said it took them 2 hours up and 90 minutes down. If we did it as fast as them, we would have just enough time to make it up and down before we needed to catch our train back.  With a number of stops and 1 member of our group dropping out, we made it up in 90 minutes and back down in another 50.  It was incredibly difficult but we meet a 70 year old couple who persevered and made it to the top after 3 hours.