Bucket lists all over the world have these two words on them: “Machu Picchu”
And for good reason.
One of the Wonders of the World, it’s a – excuse me – bloody incredible sight to see.
And Incan citadel, built in the 15th century in the Andes Mountains in Peru, and later left undiscovered and so untouched by Spanish invaders, was later found and brought to international attention in 1911.
In such good condition, due to it being left undiscovered for so long, it was completely restored by 1976 and is now one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world.
However, there are concerns about the growing number of tourists to the site, and the impact it could have, so please, if you visit, do so respectfully, responsibly and carefully.
I can tell you Machu Picchu is such an amazing place to witness – the purity of it, the incredible structures and showing of knowledge that the Incan people had, blew my mind.
I could have walked around this ancient city forever and still not gotten over the magnitude of it all.
After exploring the site itself, we took on another task – a huge task.
That of climbing Huayna Picchu – aka that MASSIVE CHUNK OF ROCK that you see in the pictures behind Machu Picchu.
Basically, it’s just these “steps” of rock carved into this massive, steep chunk of land in the sky.
No barrier to stop you falling off the cliff to your death, no places along the thin path to rest, and (for us) a time limit to scale the mountain before climbing back down and making it to our bus on time.
After what I’ve told you about my level of fitness, I’m sure you can imagine what came next.
A whole lot of dripping sweat, sore feet, and some – creative – choice words to describe how I was feeling about the blessed beauty as we dragged our poor souls to the top.
But of course, as every travel story usually does, this story ends with happiness (Of course).
The feeling of accomplishment and wonder as we sat at the top and looked over Machu Picchu was one I can’t beat.
Seriously – if you go to Machu Picchu, please don’t skip this “extra” – I’d call it more of a “must-do”.
Awesome! went there last year, and would do it again in a heart beat if I didn’t have so many other places to see! We didn’t do the extra. You’re really great to have done that!