Stephanie Metzger

There is nothing like waking up at 3am to catch a bus at 4am to take us to catch our train, then to take another bus to THE Machu Picchu. At least I got a nice hot shower in the morning to wake me up(my first hot shower in Peru, might I add)! Our bus ride to the top of the mountain was crazy! We took a route that zigzagged it’s way up to the top, on a very narrow road. There was a point that a bus from the other direction was coming down as our bus was trying to make it to the top, and there was no room to pass so our bus backed up into the mountain as far as it could so that the other bus could attempt to pass, which it did, with barely an inch to spare from the edge of the cliff. But we made it! When we got to Machu Picchu it was absolutely gorgeous and the weather was perfect, not too hot, not too cold. Everything was a lot bigger than it seemed in pictures too, and it was absolutely unreal. I took pictures beyond pictures, but I honestly don’t think my pictures did any justice as to how it was in real life. For anybody that doesn’t know what Machu Picchu is, they are ruins of a village that took 300 years to build during the Inca Empire in the 1500s. Then after being built for 200 years, the Spanish came to Peru and were destroying all of the communities within the area. The people that lived in Machu Picchu during this time knew that the Spanish would come, so they abandoned Machu Picchu so that it wouldn’t be destroyed. THEN, in 1911 an American, I can’t remember his name, found the ruins. Within Machu Picchu they had different types of instruments used to measure the astrological system. They also had rocks that pointed to north, south, east, and west around every corner, just incase if anybody got confused of course! They had a sun dome that had two windows pointing north and south. On the winter solstice(December 21^st), the sun shines straight through these windows perfectly without catching a splinter of the dome inside. Another thing that I thought was pretty interesting was how in some rooms they have what looks like a window sill, but there are stones blocking from being able to see out. These were used to place things, and they were also used as a speaker system. Our tour guide had us put our heads inside and he would go to another one from across the room and you could hear everything that he was saying through the vibrations. It was crazy! After our tour a couple friends and I went on a 20 minute hike to a bridge that was also built for the village. This bridge was alongside the cliff and it was basically logs that were place down to connect from one side to the other, which looked extremely unsafe since ONCE AGAIN there was no railing. But I didn’t cross it because it was blocked off to the public which was probably a good thing! The hike to this bridge was gorgeous, and it was as if I were in the jungle because it was very green and there was moss along the side of the mountain with bright colored flowers. Then to top off that hike, another group of friends and I decided to take an hour long hike up to the top mountain on the other side of machu picchu. It was a tough hike up to the mountain, but I am very glad I decided to hike it because by this point I was worn out, but it was so worth it! Once we got to the top, there were more Inca ruins and we sat on them for a while just to admire the sight. We were so high up that Machu Picchu looked so little and the river running below us was so far away! If it was a cloudy day I probably would have been sitting in the clouds! I still can’t believe that I visited one of the seven wonders of the world, and it is something that I will never forget!