I made it to Machu Picchu!

I made it to Machu Picchu this morning, and it is every bit as amazing as the pictures, if not more so. The Andes mountains are spectacular and appear to rise up directly in one sheer cliff from the Urubamba River. It is difficult NOT to take photos that look like picture post cards. Yesterday I started a two day bus/train trip from Cusco that included the Inca ruins at Pisac and Ollantaytambo (I think the latter is pronounced oy-ahn-tye-TAM-bow). I started the day yesterday feeling very queazy, which I chalked off to the effects of high altitude.  I soldiered on, because I wasn´t about to miss seeing Machu Picchu having come this far.  By the end of that day, I was feeling better, thank goodness. Each of the first two ruins, like Machu Picchu, had terraces for farming and showed creative use of stone work. We had a guide on the bus yesteday who did an excellent job of explaining what we were seeing at both ruins, which helped immensely. The Incas were accomplished astronomers, who had their own housing and star-gazing platforms at the top of the Pisac ruins. Both ruins involved much huffing and puffing on my part to climb to the top. After the second of the ruins, the bus returned to Cusco while a handful of us went to the train station to catch a train for Aguas Calientes, which is the town closest to Machu Picchu. Aguas Calientes means Hot Springs in Spanish, and true to its name there really are hot springs, which I viewed this afternoon but opted not to go swimming. Now back to Machu Picchu. I slept in a hostel last night and set the alarm for 5:15 am. I ate breakfast and caught a 6:30 bus to Machu Picchu that takes 30 minutes of turns and switchbacks to get to the top, most times keeping the beautiful Urubamba River in sight. There was not much of a crowd at that hour because the REAL early birds who had gone up the mountain to watch the sunrise were already there. I met my guide and the rest of the tour group at the entrance and spent the next 2 1/2 hours learning about how the original residents of Machu Picchu lived. Our guide spoke the Quechua language, as well as Spanish and English, and spoke of the Incas as "my people". It took 50 years to build Machu Picchu using available rocks and resources and only llamas and humans to carry materials. The stone work really is astonishing especially given that they used little if any mortar to hold the rocks in place. Eight hundred (300 nobility and 500 workers) people lived there for 100 years before the arrival of Pissaro and the rest of the Spaniards.  Machu Picchu was abandoned around the time of Pissaro´s arrival in Cusco in 1533, and evidently the Spaniards never knew of its existence. It lay dormant and overgrown until 100 years ago (July of 1911) when a Yale University professor re-discovered it while looking for the Ancient City of the Incas. One of the things I found interesting is that there are llamas who graze the grounds of Machu Picchu, serving the dual purpose of keeping the grass short and adding unique ambiance with many photo opportunities. They wander wherever they want to go, not taking much notice of the hundreds of tourists who flock to the ruins every day. In addition to exploring Machu Picchu, the first 400 visitors each day are given the opportunity to climb a nearby mountain called Waynapicchu. I had heard that climbing Waynapicchu was gruelling, and I passed on that one. Tonight I take the train back to the town of Ollantaytambo, and then a bus back to Cusco. I get to sleep late tomorrow before I meet Bill and Maureen for the next phase of this adventure.