Conquering Wayan Picchu!

I came back to Peru and I conquered the mountain. When I was at Machu Picchu the last time I was unable to climb WayanPicchu and knew one day I would be back to climb it, this was my number one goal for this trip. If you're familiar with pictures of Machu Picchu... WayanPicchu is the tall mountain that stands behind the ruins.   We were up at 445am and we were at the main entrance to the ruins at 6am... Started climbing at 7am!!! We actually did a shorter hike first to Huayan Picchu which for me was tons of fun!!! Narrow Incan stairs with a sheer drop on one side and hugging the mountain on the other. SO FUN!!  Getting up to WayanPicchu was tons of fun too... A lot more of the same narrow stone stairs with ropes to help you up. Some stairs were really short with barely enough room for your foot and others came up to my knees.  The steepness and stairs reminded me a bit of the Grouse Grind but the rewards of the views were priceless! It was so amazing to see Machu Picchu from an unobstructed  birds eye view and amazing views of the Andean mountains that surround Machu Picchu.  When we reached the top (in just under an hour and a half) Katie stayed to rest in a more "secure" spot as I went to explore the ruins that are at the top. This involved stairs that were even more narrow and steep. I got some amazing pictures. We had met a few girls from Argentina on the way up and they were happy to be my photographers at the top.  The way down was also fun... It had rained quite hard the night before so the steps were damp and covered in wet leaves so you had to step very carefully. But again for me it was tons of fun.  Once we got down we found a guide for a tour of Machu Picchu... It was great to get some insight into what we were looking at and the culture of this ancient civilization, but we were both quite tired and by the end of the hour long tour we were pretty much done. We spent a total of about 7 hours up in the ruins.  An absolutely amazing day!!!  The train/ bus ride back felt long and we didn't get to our hotel until 1030pm.... Boy did we sleep good!  Today will be a pretty calm day of exploring more of Cusco and checking out some more markets. I don't think our bodies will allow us to do much more than that.  And and the quote of the day yesterday.... While siting at lunch after 7 hours of hiking in the beautiful sun and feeling quite sweaty and gross.... I said to Katie "why do I smell so good?" .... I had just used some of my Satsuma hand sanitizer... I'm sure it was just that, there was no way I was smelling good then!