Machu Picchu and Hayna Pichu

Hi, its Parker, its my turn to write about our day at Machu Pichu. We woke up about 5:00ish, in Aguas Caliente and got ready for the day. We went to breakfast at the hotel and ate eggs, pancakes, bread, and fruit. I didn't really like the syrup. It wasn't like ours, it tasted like old honey.

We met our guide at the hotel and walked up to where we caught our bus to Machu Pichu. It was rainy and a bit chilly with a lot of clouds in the morning.  It was rainy when we got off the bus and we could only find two ponchos.  (Mom put the other ponchos in another bag and we didn't find them till later after it stopped raining and got warm.) 

Our guide started our tour and talked about the farming outside the gates, and the guard tower, and the city wall. The farming had to be outside the city walls and couldn't be inside the city.  

 

Then we climbed to the astronomy building. When the sun came through the window and hit the altar at the exact spot, this was a sign of the solstice. Depending on which window the sun came through determined which solstice it was.

We then went to the temples. The Incas thought 3 was a perfection number. One temple had 3 windows, 3 steps on each side, and the 3 animals, the puma, snake, and the condor. Also the sun, the moon, and the stars which they worshipped. 

Then we climbed up a lot of stairs to the astronomy tower. It was used for tracking the stars. They used the constellations to help them know what time of year it was. There was also a section on the altar up there, that aligned with the cardinal directions, north, south, east, and west.

Then we headed over towards where the houses were. What i thought was weird was that the houses did not have bathrooms. The people would have to go outside the city walls, where the farming was and dig a hole when they wanted to go to the bathroom.

When we were done looking at the houses, we went by the entrance to Waynapichu. (Waynapichu is a really steep mountain that is next to Machu Pichu) We looked at some sundials that showed the people when it was exactly noon. These were round disks in the floor that were filled with sand and water. The sun beam showed right in the middle of the dish at noon.

We then hiked up the trail to see the view of all of Machu Pichu. It was incredible!

 

 

 After this our guide left us and we went and climbed Haynapichu. Connor and I went ahead of mom and dad and Kaylee. We had to wait a long time for them at the top.And then again at the bottom. The view was really majestic at the top. It gave a really cool view of Machu Pichu. On the trail there were partings in the trees so that you could see Machu Pichu as we were climbing. It was really hot while we were climbing down and at the bottom. I was the youngest person to climb it on this day. Connor was the third youngest. The elevation is 1181 feet, and most of it straight up.

 

The steps are solid stones that they cut out of the stone on the mountain. It was really steep and we had to climb using our hands for most of the hike.

We beat everybody by 15 minutes.



The view from the top, We DID it!



After we left Machu Pichu we went to a really good buffet at the entrance the park.  What was really cool about the buffet was that they had ice.  Ice is not very common in Peru.  It was so good after the hike. On the walls of the restaurant, they had really old pictures from when Machu Pichu was discovered.

After we ate we rode the buses down to Aguas Caliente and got our luggage and went and got on the train. We got some cool t-shirts from the market by the train station. The train ride was about an hour and a half and then we rode in our taxi for another hour and a half.