Conquering APU Machu Picchu

Me at the top of APU Machu Picchu
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We woke up really early to head towards Machu Picchu. We met our guide right after breakfast and walked with him to the bus station. He had prepared for us a lunch box consisting of fruit, cereal bars and bottled water.

Like I said before, it was not our first time there, so we decided to skip the accustomed visit to the ruins and start the hike to APU Machu Picchu. This hike starts at the ruins and goes up on the mountains that face Machu Picchu, right in front of the Huayna Picchu. We decided to do this hike because almost nobody does it, so we were pretty much alone during the entire excursion.

It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I had just seen a llama being born.

Machu Picchu from above
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The hike took us about 2 hours to go up. I sped up and went by myself and arrived alone to the top of the mountain. It was really fantastic. The sky had just cleared so I could see Machu Picchu down below and the river in the distance. We ate our snacks, took pictures and started to climb back down.

While we were resting sitting down and admiring the views, I noticed that a large group of tourists was eagerly taking pictures of some llamas. I stared at them too, wondering what the fuss was all about and then I saw it; something had fell on the floor with a big thud. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I had just seen a llama being born. We stayed there for like 20 minutes, I really wanted to see the baby llama stand up, but we had to take the 13:20 Vistadome train out, and we had little time left.

The birth of a llama
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We went back to the hotel, packed our things and went to the train station, stopping before at the restaurant to get a sandwich to go. You should definitely try the Lomo Saltado Sandwich. We arrived at Ollantaytambo train station and our driver was already waiting for us. Ollantaytambo is midway between Machu Picchu and Cusco and is a great place to stay as well as the rest of the Sacred Valley because from there you can visit the nearby ruins and towns. We visited the ruins of Ollantaytambo or at least “tried to” because I was so tired from the morning hike, that I just stared at the hundreds of steps without moving an inch. I was definitely not going to climb anything else, at least that day.

Afterwards, we went to Inkaterra Urubamba Villas, located midway between Ollantaytambo and Pisac. The villas are like 5 minutes by car from the main road in a private property. It is very peaceful. The Villa Manager showed us around our villa and explained us the activities that we could do the next day, since we didn’t have anything planned. We decided that we wanted to go horseback riding, so he called up a friend of his who offered the service and requested it for us.

We slept early, since there was nothing to do there and we were of course exhausted.