We started in Lima, staying with Natalie's family, where we went to the Gold Museum (which has more gold and artifacts crammed into each case than I ever imagined could exist) and wandered the streets for a couple nights, getting to know the Peruvian nightlife which rarely slows down before 5 in the morning. Then we flew to Cusco which is up at 11,500 feet. After waking up at 3am to fly there, we spent all day hiking around ancient Incan ruins which had been stripped of all their gold by the Spanish. They used a lot of the gold to decorate their cathedrals in Cusco which we saw the following day. We went to the sacred valley which was the farthest inland that the Spanish conquered. The Incan ruler of the sacred valley fled to Macchu Pichu when they were attacked, and the Spanish could not follow him because of the terrain and altitude. Macchu Pichu actually wasn't discovered by the modern world until a pilot flew over it around 1930.

The next day we went back to the sacred valley to hike the Inca trail from there to Macchu Pichu. After our first major climb we saw a small child sitting backwards on a donkey as he was riding it up hill. We shared our trail food with him, and went on our way. About 6 miles in we got to Huayllabamba where we decided to hire a porter in case anyone had trouble with their pack or the altitude, and then we bagan climbing the 5000ft ascent. Soon a couple members of the group began having trouble hiking; so we utlized the porter and hired his brother. We camped at about 11,500ft looking down the straight valley we had been hiking for so long. The next morning we continued up the mountain accompanied by three or four other groups of hikers who all had guides and porters. Slowly we ascended the highest pass on the trail. The last mile or so was an almost straight stone staircase. I had to take a deep breath in and out every step I took to get enough oxygen, but we got to the top, and there was quite a party going on up there. One of the guides had a bottle of tequilla and was taking shots with all the Argentinians he was leading, and almost eveyone else was sitting around with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths staring back down the valley. So we kept going. We hiked down into the next valley where a lot of people camped, and continued on to the second pass at about 13,500 feet stopping at a crumbling Incan watch tower along the way. After mounting the pass, and saying goodbye to our porters, we stumbled through the downpour to our next soaking camp site. The last day of hiking we were literally running down the trail at times as we descended from the high barren land into an almost jungle, and we went so fast that we finished a day early. The end of the hike was uphill again until we finally made it to the Sun Gate. There the sun finally began shining on us and we gazed down into the river valley below. At first I didn't even see Macchu Pichu because it blended in so well with the mountains. Then I realized that the hill perched on the ridge between two peaks was too perfect to be a hill. It was an Incan temple. The rest of the city was surrounding it.

That night we stayed in a hostel in Aguas Calientes (below Macchu Pichu) and fired up the camp stove in our room to have one last camp style meal. In the morning we returned to Macchu Pichu to explore. The most amazing thing to me was a sundial on the top of the temple. It was somewhat of a square carved out of a single giant rock. And on both of the solstices it made shadows of different sacred animals which lined up perfectly with other parts of the temple. One corner of the sundial pointed north, and the other corners pointed in the other cardinal dirrections. The amazing thing was each of the corners also pointed at one of the four highest mountain peaks in the area. It was a very special place. The architecture of the Incans was spectacular. They moved and carved rocks as large as 130 tons so that the rocks would fit together perfectly. They used no mortar when building, which supposedly made their buildings earthquakeproof. Everything that the Spanish did not destroy was still standing when we got there.

Then we went back to Cusco where a few of us spent some time recovering from stomach issues. Then back to Lima where we relaxed and spent a day at the beach during which we all got fried. Then back to Amherst where it was snowing as soon as we got off the plane.

 Take care,
Michael