The Inca Trail Hike to Machu Picchu

Day 3 of the trail begins with us waking up exhausted after 10 hours of sleeping, which is never a good feeling to need a nap before you even get up. But we wanted to do this, so alas we rose!

Our bodies are SORE. A type of sore that we have neither been before. Our legs, our abdomen, and our lungs. Sore.

Breakfast was needed and we were pleasantly surprised to see that there were wild llamas roaming around our campsite.

The hike on Day 3 was supposed to be much less rigorous than Day 2. It was a much shorter day as well with us finishing up around 2:00pm rather than 8:30pm the day prior.

The scenery was magnificent. The second peak from day 2 put us through the Cloud Forest and now we were in the Amazon Basin. There were Inca ruins that were still standing and holding their own against the intense vegetation.

A cave like pass through

Details of architecture

In the Amazon Basin

It was our honeymoon!

Some Amazon wildlife at altitude

I was hoping for more animals through this part of the hike because we were in the Amazon Basin. But we were still at an altitude that does not provide a hospitable environment for most. There were beautiful, giant butterflies though.

Intipata was one of the biggest ruins that we came across. It was pretty special to be able to walk all over these ruins and feel the stones and steps first hand.

The beginning of Intipata

Andes in the distance

A trail that has been taken hundreds of times

Intipata peeking out

A great juxtaposition

We felt every one of these stairs!

Leeann getting caught looking for llamas

Trust us- we felt every single one of these stairs with our sore legs.

There were surprise llamas on Intipata. The llama pictured below is known as the selfie llama. She loves apples and I happened to have an extra apple from my day of nausea which I fed to her so I could get extra close.

A friendly llama!

A special connection

After we were done hiking for the day, we were able to take our first shower of the hike… gross, I know. A cold shower later, we continued to fight off the swarms of bugs at our campsite. Because we went down in altitude, more animals (bugs) were showing up.

This is my outfit to protect myself from them- so fashionable.

Campsite for Day 3

Wiñay Wayna!

Overwhelmed

Llamas in the distance

In the King’s room

Beautiful symmetry

Andes Mountains at sunset

Andes Mountains

Near our campsite there was one more Inca ruins to visit, Wiñay Wayna. It was immaculate and massive. Because we were already done with the hike, we were able to spend as much time as we wanted at the site.

The evening turned out to be beyond beautiful.

Before dinner, we changed into our new alpaca hoodies. Super warm and cozy.

It was an early bedtime call because it was an even earlier wake up call 2:45am. Day 4 was the final short stretch until Machu Picchu. I felt like a child on Christmas- I could not sleep because I was too excited.

-Leeann