Inca Trail Day 3 and 4

Day 3

Beautiful Machu Picchu

Barely able to get up because our knees hurt so bad from all of our uphill climbing the day before, we were up at 5:30 am and on the trail by 7am.  This day was only slightly easier than Day 2 being mostly down hill, which is harder than it sounds, and our longest day….hiking for 11 hours.

Our amazing group!

We realized the Incas REALLY must have liked stairs and thought our decent down the stairs would never end…every corner we turned we had MORE stairs.  This day we went through amazing caves and beautiful jungle terrain still.   We had a constant view of Mountain Veronica (Karen’s favorite because her middle name is Veronica!) and she kept us inspired and reminded us why we were here….to rebirth ourselves, release heavy energies that no longer serve us and transform.

The cruelest joke of all was when we got close to the camp site (at least we THOUGHT we were close) and the camp site was so large we had to go down 11 more flights of stairs to get to our camp!!!  OUCH!!  By this point, everyone’s knees and legs were shaking and we couldn’t wait to sit down…although when we tried our knees didn’t seem to work.

We literally fell into our tents after a warm delicious meal to sleep for only 4 hours because we were up at 3:30 am to start Day 4!

Day 4

3:30 am is WAY too early to wake up but we all did it and were in an awesome mood because this was the day we arrive to Machu Picchu!!

Chris and Edgar

We loaded our gear, said goodbye to our amazing porters and hit the trail at 5:30 am.

The trail this day was mostly flat again like Day 1 except for a few areas…such as the steep incline we had to literally climb to get to the top. (One of the Inca’s way of keeping people from finding Machu Picchu.)  As each amazing woman made her climb up, I played “Eye of the Tiger” on my phone and at the top Edgar awaited to bless them with Florida water.

We arrived at the Sun Gate, the entrance to Machu Picchu from the trail, not too long after and all cried tears of joy to see her beauty and peacefulness.  On our way down to Machu Picchu, we were met by Carol C. and Carol S. who re-joined the group and we all felt whole again!

Machu Picchu is one of those amazing places you cannot describe nor capture in a mere picture.  Her ancient beauty and power make you realize there is more to our lives than bills to pay and places to get to on time.  She reminds us that we are all here for a reason and the most important thing in our lives is love and finding our balance.

Edgar demonstrating our balancing on the ledge

After touring most of Machu Picchu, Edgar took us to the Crystal Wall where we placed our heads on the wall and then stood out on a ledge overlooking Machu Picchu to find our “balance” in life.  AMAZING is all I have to say!!!

Don Isidro, me, Edgars wife and Edgar

After visiting Machu Picchu we all headed to our hotel in Aquas Calientes and immediately went to the natural hot springs which felt amazing on our sore muscles!  We had a great dinner at the hotel and the next day everyone had the morning to themselves to shop, get massages and sight see.  We boarded our train back to Cusco around 2:30pm, went right back to our old hotel and were greeted by Don Isidro!  We all freshened up and headed to the Cusco square for a celebration dinner with Pedro, Don Isidro, Edgars wife and baby Randy who we picked up along the way and our cook Libio!  We had an awesome time eating and listening to live Peruvian music at Libio’s brother’s restaurant!

We said our sad goodbyes to Edgar and the gang and headed to bed.  This morning we board our flight to the Amazon Jungle where we will be for the next two days…

Another beautiful view!

Until the Amazon…

Chris

Tags: Peru Journey