Machu Picchu!

Team T does not always opt for the easiest most direct route to anything! With that being said, we set off to the famous Machu Picchu in a let´s say round about way. We decided to take the train one way... that would be at the end. We started off in a little town called Urbamba. After waiting a couple of hours we got on the wrong bus. The bus pulled over for us let us out and we hiked back to the bus station. An hour later the ¨right¨ bus came and we found two seats. The kids sat on our laps. Our bus climbed high up the Andes range. An hour of steep switchbacks straight up to the glaciers. Then we turned straight back down the backside and switchbacked right into the jungle. It was a total of about 5 hours on the bus. The kids did great. The parents had a spectacular scenery for the whole 5 hours.

After getting off the bus in Santa Maria, we took a taxi along these cliffs on some ramshackle thing they call a road. This was a true roller coaster ride.... better than anything at Six flags. Anika said that it was like the real Matterhorn ride! We safely made it to Santa Teresa our place of departure to Machu Picchu. We over nighted here and fueled up for our big hike.

The next day we hired a taxi along with our Ecuador Amigos for again another hairy riaising ride to a hydro electric damn. Then we got out and hiked to Aguas Caliente (the Machu Picchu Tourist ghetto). This was about a 4 hour walk for Team T along the river and railroad track around the Machu Picchu mountains. We saw all kinds of interesting birds and bugs. Nicholas walked all of about 10 minutes. Thank goodness for the Ergo carrier or we would have never made it.

We stayed over night in the tourist ghetto and the next day we joined the caravans of tourists up to the sight. It was amazing! We had breakfast up there and took it all in. The best part was running into our friends Doug and Kevin from home. We´ll write more about it soon!