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Marty's Adventures
We started our day having breakfast and some verrrry strong coffee! We walked up to the bus station and with bus tickets already purchased we jumped in a bus and squished in! The lady who sat next to me did the sign of the cross when the bus started moving and I kinda got worried about the drive ahead! The drive was up the side of a mountain on switchbacks in these buses that didn't go too slow and then on coming buses on roads barely wide enough for both.... straight up and straight down. It is no wonder the poor lady was praying from the start! We arrived at the gate and decided we would get a private tour as we only had a few hours till our start time for our hike up Huayna Picchu. Our guide Paulo was great. He had two girls with cameras and he was very patient with our picture taking! There is so much history there but I just kept thinking why oh why would you build a city with so many stairs!! OR so high up a mountain!! It took them 50 years to build the city and then only lived there for 20 more. That is a lot of work! It was great to learn about the different buildings and how they were built. After our tour we went back to the entrance to get more water and use the Banos! There is nothing on the site. We made our way back to the entrance to Huayna Picchu and ended up having to wait in line. There was an hour window we could head up and we were the last couple of people to get on the trail. It was a tough trek up.... Stairs and stairs.... And when I say stairs I mean uneven squared boulders that were high steps. We climbed up to the top, elevation 8900 ft. This trek up came with some amazing views and we both had our own issues. Thankfully both being able to talk each other through. Mine came at the very top where I had to climb on to a flat sloping rock about 5 ft in diameter and it dropped off the edge of the mountain. I climbed up the ladder and froze in fear. I went cback down the ladder and tried to keep the tears in but a few escaped. I pulled myself together and went back up the ladder. Nat talked me through it and I finally crawled on to the rock. I crawled across the rock and have scrapes knees to prove it! I had another moment of frozen fear coming down, straight down with nothing to hold on to. Made it through that. Other than that we both have very sore legs and huge boosted spirits being so proud we did it! The views were AMAZING and totally worth it. We were very happy to get back to the main site and have a rest. Did I mention it was raining up on these rocks??? I wish I had more pictures from up there but I was more focused on staying alive than taking pictures! Nat has some great ones on her go pro that took pictures every minute. We wanted to do some more exploring and taking pictures as we had gone from important spot to important spot in our tour and didn't get to wander in and out and around. There were way less people on the site and the sun had returned so we got some amazing pictures! We made our way up to the guard house which is the best place to take pictures and just happens to be waaaaay up high on the other side of the site! I was so done with stairs but I wanted to get up there! More pictures and amazing views. By the time we got to the guard house we were done. We made our way down down down the stairs back to the entrance and Nat followed Llamas (natural lawn mowers) trying to get a good picture. Hopped on the bus and made our way back to town. I was so filthy from crawling and sliding on my bum I had to jump in the shower right away and I think my new favorites shorts may be forever ruined. We had a wee rest and headed down and talked to Christoph our host. He made a recommendation for dinner and we headed back up into town to the main square and had an amazing three course meal at a place called Indio Felix with not a thought of calorie intake! We shopped our way back down to our B&B. Another early night tonight as we are both exhausted. AMAZING DAY!!!
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