Peru - Final Days

I was so on the ball with all my Peru posts till this one.  It's a week late!  But better late than never, right?  After our work in the villages, we took 2 days to tour sites in the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu.  Our first stop was at an Alpaca farm.  There were llamas too, and I'm not gonna play smarty pants here, I can't really tell the difference even though they explained it to me.  I'll blame the altitude.

  Here I am feeding a...llamaca.  LOL. 

 

I just had to add this picture of Shannon baby talking the cute little critter.

 

After the Alpaca Farm, we headed over to Pisac.  I love Pisac!  It's gorgeous and a good hike with an awesome temple at the end.

The view from up on Pisac.  It's so much more green than it looks.

 

The trail goes around the mountain, will turn into stairs, rises then falls, with ruins all around.  Just gorgeous!

 

The Sacred Valley down below from the top of Pisac.

 

This is the temple at the end of the trail at Pisac.  We had an LDS guide who gave us the Book of Mormon explanation for a lot of structures and symbolism.  So amazing.

 

I think I put this exact picture in 2 years ago when I blogged.  The temple is in the background.  The pure water drains out of the temple and fills up this pool of water.  There are steps that go down in the pool (font) and people would lower themselves into the water to become clean before entering the temple.  Hmmm....

 

I loved this pic of our group descending Pisac.

 

After Pisac, we went to Ollantaytambo.  It's another set of ruins and we were really short on time so I just took a handful of pictures.

 

The Inca sure loved stairs....

 

After Ollantaytambo, we hopped on the train to head down to Aguas Calientes which is the little village just below Machu Picchu.

 

AMAZING picture of the snow capped mountains poking through on the train ride.

The little village of Aguas Calientes.  A total tourist town full of hostels, restaurants, and markets.  People of every nationality you could think of.  It's hoppin!

 

The train goes right through town.

 

Mel, Shannon, Erica, and I all signed up to hike Huayna Picchu.  It's the little...just kidding...BIG mountain that sticks up behind the ruins of Machu Picchu.  See how little it is?

 

Well, the night before, I got sick...DARNIT!  So I had to pass and miss that hike.  I was a little sad although I was a little nervous cause I don't love heights.  But I did steal these pics from Mel.  They are insane.  Looks like they are just going to fall off the side of the earth!

 I did join them about 10am and we toured and hiked around Machu Picchu.  I couldn't decide what pictures to add so I added a bunch!  It was rainy and misty mostly the whole time so I don't know that I was able to see the ruin in its entirety at any one point but wow...it was amazing and I think the pictures are so cool!

One of my favorite pics from Machu Picchu...the terraced farms the cool houses along the side...what an amazing place!  What a great trip.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself and loved hanging with my sister and my awesome friends.  Thanks for spending the money girls and sharing this awesome experience!