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Day Three........
Well today was a fairly ride in terms of walking. The hardest part of the trek was the first half an hour being uphill from camp to the pass where, had the weather been a little better, we'd have had our first view of Machu Picchu Mountain. Anyway from the pass we descended to an Inca ruin where our guide gave an explanation of the structures, etc. Those Inca people were rather clever really. He told us of a pool that they had built further up the hill which corresponded directly with the constellations and meant they could study the stars by looking into the pool rather than having to strain their necks and look up all the time! Clever!
Our guide also explained how the Inca had built aqueducts and small pools to prevent the water from causing landslides and that the workers put mint into the water to purify it for the people down in Machu Picchu city. It was all really interesting stuff (not sure Kim enjoyed the explanations much - she resorted to listening to her Ipod!!!) and it was great to hear it from someone who had grown up in the area.
From those ruins it was downhill all the way to our final campsite (with promised hot showers and buildings and nice toilets!!). The route was pretty steep but we were given a few glimpses of Machu Picchu Mountain along the way which was great.
Our campsite was a rather thin ledge over the campsite below us but nearby was the promised toilets, showers and even a little cafe. I think Kim thought she'd died and gone to heaven! The hot showers were pretty good and changing into some nice clean clothes felt pretty good. That afternoon a few of us drank a handful of beers each congratulating ourselves on having completed the hard part of the trek. I and some of the other group then went down to Winay Wayna an Inca site just a few minutes walk from the campsite (Kim and a couple of the others stayed behind with the wine!). It was pretty amazing and quite intact. Well worth a few minutes extra walking!
That night we said goodbye to our porters, had a few more beers and hit the sack ready to get up for 4am the next morning so that we could get to the Inti Punku (the Sun Gate) nice and early!
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