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Travel trivia: Who has the slogan "We do more before 9:00 am then most people do all day"? The US army does, and today felt like one of those for us.
We got up at 5:20 am to get ready to stand in line to enter the park at 6:00 am. You need to be in line by 5:45 am, or be in line behind a lot of people, as the first bus arrives around 5:50. So we get in line, anxiously awaiting the opening of the park at 6, so we can hike up to the sun gate.
It opens, we go. It's that simple. I agreed with Gary and Wendy to just march to the top. It's about 1,400ft elevation, and at a good pace it was a good 25min hike for us. Paths are narrow, sometimes just one person wide, and steps are uneven, sometimes tall, frequently not very deep. It's not all steps - probably only 10% of it is. But where there are steps, it counts...
We get to the top, expecting to be amongst the first, and there are at least 50 people already there. Mostly because the gate is along the Inca trail, and there is thus another way to get there (from the other side of the mountain). But still, we got there, just minutes after the sun came over the mountain, and the views were spectacular and the accomplishment made us feel good about it. The time: 6:30 am.
About 5 times a year there is an amazing view of Machu Picchu and surrounding areas from this point. The other 360 days there are clouds that need a little time to burn off. That's why there were so many people there: they were just waiting for it to clear. And as we were there, more people came to the site, took a seat, and waited. We waited about 30min, then started to head back. Just as we left, we got some really great views as pockets of clouds would clear and expose, then hide again, the magnificent site of Machu Picchu. I could have stood there all day watching it. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life. Hopefully the camera managed to capture some of it.
So here I am, blogging at 10am... The rest of the day is rather uneventful. We take a train back, have lunch, take a bus further back to Cusco, have dinner there. Pretty easy day on the legs (except the very top part of the back of the legs). Then tomorrow is our last full day in Cusco, and Saturday is our travel day to Lima (early morning) and then Atlanta (at midnight). Almost done, and what an amazing adventure this was. I know a handful of people who've gone to Machu Picchu and said it was an absolutely must see. Nobody overstated it, and we are now three more advocates of this amazing world heritage site.
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