Machu Picchu - just a million pictures

I am going to skip Aguas Calientes and add that to my next post on the Sacred Valley.  This post is dedicated to our day at Machu Picchu.  I suspect it is mostly going to be pictures.  

We bought entrance tickets for 6am.  The bus to the entrance gate is 30 minutes and we had heard that there may be a bit of a line up for the bus.   So we got up at 4:30am (ouch) and were in line for the bus by 5:15.  It was still dark out. 

The ride up to the mountain was stunnng.  It is basically just a zigzag road so view, then no view, view, then no view.  I tried to take some pictures but I'm sure they are awful.

We got to the gate around 5:50 so we had to wait a bit.  We were fairly close to the front.  We took a picture of this map because we didn't bring a map.  In fact, we had done no research on best routes, best places to see etc.  As per usual, I have almost no information on Machu Picchu itself.  Other than the going theory is that it was the summer retreat for the Inca royalty.  

Of course, we never looked at it again

The entrance gate

We scurried up the stairs behind a bunch of people.  But they were all heading for the main lookout.  Since we didn't know where that was, or that it existed, we tucked in behind the caretakers hut and got an incredible view before anyone had reached the ruins.  As you can imagine, it takes your breath away.  We were alone for a few minutes with this view!

Ta Da!

Then our secret hidey spot got found by a group so we continued up the path to the lookout.

No secret hidey spot here.

After we miradored for a bit, we headed to Machu Picchu mountain path.  For some insane reason, we thought we should not only do Machu Picchu, but also climb a mountain!  We wandered around a bit until the mountain gate opened.  We were on the other side of the park with very few people.  The view of the mountains was incredible.

Finally, it was 7am and we were allowed onto the mountain trail.  We were instantly in jungle. The sign said that the trail was over 2000 steps.  Inca steps! Which means stone, uneven, and slippery because it started to rain as soon as we started up.

Jungle

Ya, these stairs.  This was where I said, nope.
We were on the mountain trail for less than an hour

No.

Back to the main park area.

The classic through the window shot

This rock is important, I don't know why

The Inca city and Huayna Picchu behind

Urubamba River way, way below in the valley

Caretaker's hut and lookout from below

Welcome to Huayna Picchu

Yikes, come early!  And this is low season

Ooh, the window shot times two!

Just a giant rock in a wall

Temple of the three windows.  Important.

Yay!!  We saw a mountain bunny

this is supposed to look like a condor. I could not get a decent shot
for all the tourists

I see you.

And further evidence that we were there

And that was that. We spent about 6 hours there and then headed back to Aguas Calientes.