Soooooo VERY early start 3:30am! need to sort out camp and get to the checkpoint early to ensure an early entrance. Nasty. My nose is still running, but I'm going to Machu Pichu today!!! Yay! We wait in line, in the dark, amongst a sea of other keen Trekkers . Surreal. The walks starts off easy with a few short inclines, a couple stop me in my tracks and I take a few moments to recover..... And then the 'Gringo Killer' appears.... Stairs that are virtually virtical! I have to hold my walking stick and climb hands and feet up to the top.... Dizzy dizzy dizzy ..... You can't stop that one mid day... And we are not far from the Sun Gate...... And our first glimpse of Machu P!!!!
And morning finally clears daybreak, we arrive at the sun gate..... And although we have been blessed without rain, we have cloud cover. :-( we sit here for almost 40 minutes, but no, no movement, so we head on. ANC not tooo much longer we start with out first glimpses. And, I'm sure you've all heard it before, the pictures don't do it justice. It's scale alone is phenomenal. There's sooo more to it to the picture purfect post card. Walking slows down now as everyone tries to take in what they are seeing. It is almost like something out of this world, with structures in places you think impossible to build and such organized and arranged society it is just incredulous that this existed soooo long ago. The systems they use are clear to see as far as water transport etc goes, it blows my mind, and the back drop to this I'd the stinking mountain range behind which ALSO hold some secrets of their own. I'm just going to kick back on one of these terraces and contemplate life, the energy here is out of this world!
