to begin our day at machu picchu, we decided to hike huayna picchu. it is the tall, looming mountain above machu picchu. they only allow 400 hikers a day, and the ascent is only 1,000 feet. what they fail to mention is by “ascent” they mean “near vertical climb” and one uses a metal cable install only 7 years ago, to help you reach the top. and guess what! it was TOTALLY worth it! it was quite the accomplishment, and though i had altitude sickness problems, i still loved it. i highly recommend it.
beginning our hike…and the last picture until we just about reached the top…i was too busy trying to not fall off the side of the mountain…
there were more ruins found at the top, where the high priest and many of the virigins lived.
we made it! it was only raining a tiny bit….ha…
to reach the true summit, we had to crawl through a tiny cave. quite the adventure!
the clouds parted a bit, so you could see the road that the busses take to take visitors to machu picchu.
the clouds parted for a brief second, and i snapped a picture of the view of machu picchu from above.
mp looking over the ledge.
this was a super safe stairwell…especially when it was wet from all the rain.
making my way back down the mountain.
another quick cloud parting.
WE DID IT! and you know, it was difficult, but sosososososo worth it!
as seen above, i was extremely excited to visit and explore moray. moray is where it is believed that the incas experimented with various crops to find the ideal growing conditions. to do this they had layered circles with various irrigation levels as well, which would test approximately how much sunlight and water was needed for the crop. it is believed that they experimented with more than 250 different types of crops.
perusing peru... 