Inca Trail 2007.

So how about something completely different to break up the Back to School posts?  (the dude starts tomorrow. Brace yourselves for many more pictures because it's his First Day of School EVER.)  Waaaaay back in 2007 Matt and I went on a trip to Peru.  It was amazing.  And Epic.  And of course I never finished blogging about it.  And I didn't even have any kids then to use as an excuse!  Anyways 7 years ago today we were hiking the Inca Trail.  Which is this insane 4 day hike through the Andes to get to Machu Picchu via the Sun Gate. It was an epic journey and one that I still reference as one of the coolest/hardest things that we've ever done.

At the start of the trail.

Map of our route - the ruins and elevations along the way.

Day 1 was fairly low key.  Started to hike up into the mountains and passed some very pretty scenery:

This picture was actually used on CNN.  Seriously.

Day 2 was... yeah.  It was DAY 2.  It was the day that we trained for months beforehand.  Basically you climb up a giant mountain to a place called "Dead Woman's Pass"  The trail rises higher than the highest point in the contiguous United States.   You start down in the jungle: 

 

And rise out above the treeline into the mountains:

 

by way of steps.  Lots and lots and lots and lots of steps.  

 

And then some more steps.

I have issues with altitude - it makes me short of breath and light headed and such.  So there was a fair bit of this happening during all of those steps:

Why are you taking this awful picture of me?  It's not like I'll post it on my blog 7 years from now or anything...

But we made it to the top!  

And it was awesome:

And .....then we hiked back down the other side:

SO MANY STEPS.

Day 3 was the day that I knew would be hard but I wasn't prepared for being HARD.  I mean we passed day 2 so how hard could it be, right?  Haaaaa.  Day 2 was 1 climb.  Day 3 is several.  Weaving up and down and all around the mountains:

With lots and lots of "steps"

At this point I think they are just messing with us.

There are several Inca sites along the way that are pretty spectacular:

 Unfortunately the day we were there it was very, very smoky:

Literally that is smoke from farmers burning last year's crops.  When it cleared the scenery was fantastic, though:

 And you end at a pretty amazing site:

 I spent that whole night worrying.  I was exhausted and really upset that the smoke would make it impossible to see Macchu Picchu from the Sun Gate.  Which is the sight that is supposed to make all of this hiking worthwhile.  The whole reason we were there.  I tossed and turned and fretted.  And when it was time to get up to hike to the gate - somewhere around 4am so that you hit the gate at sunrise - I got out of bed, looked up, and saw..... STARS.  Perfectly clear skies.  Perfect end to our adventure.

That gray blob in the background is Machu Picchu.  Notice how the sun hasn't hit it yet?  We got to watch the first rays of light travel across it.  Amazing.

I could probably do about 5 posts just of pictures of Machu Picchu.  But I'll edit it down to a few:

 

It was an amazing trip.  I hope someday we can take our kids on adventures like this.