We were able to sleep in a little bit. At 6:30, we woke up and got ready for Happy Day! The night was the coldest so far, so we were a little slower to crawl out of our tents.
Today’s hike was rolling hills, and surprisingly our group wasn’t too sore from yesterday’s travels. We were losing elevation in our hike and eventually returned back down to the cloud forest, seeing multi-colored moss and ferns, small orchids, and other different flowers. There were some steep drop-offs and at one point, the Incas carved a path through the mountain side to extend the trail. I couldn’t imagine when they first built the trail.
The days hike was only about 5 hours until we arrived at lunch and our overnight camp. This was the first place where you could took take a shower, so Bridget took advantage of this, while I went for a beer. Cusquena never tasted any better. We relaxed for about two hours, and then went for our last Inca ruin before Machu Picchu
This ruin was my favorite thus far, Wiñay Wayna (Forever Young). This was about a ten minute hike away from our campsite, but we arrived around dusk. It was huge though and had stairs that went down forever. We needed our flashlights for our final night with our porters.
We ate dinner, and the chef carved a fruit into a bird, which was neat. Dinner was great, and finally Ron had a speech of gratitude for the porters. He told the porters how much we admired their efforts and their work. And this is when we gave them their tips. We then rested for our early morning the next day.
