Caldonia: All of us woke up early in the morning and ate breakfast. Freddy, our guide met us and we went together to the bus. We were really excited and went on a winding road. It was hard to see because it was very cloudy and rainy. When we arrived, we felt curious. What would Machu Picchu look like? We showed our passport and tickets then entered. Freddy started signing.. no, I mean writing and speaking, explaining to us about the geography and what everything looks like. He showed us the moon flower, and how they (the Incans) used this to sacrifice women. There are three symbols that are always shown: 1) River for snakes, 2) Puma for life/Earth, 3) Condor for the afterlife/the dead. You can always see the three symbols across the area.
Then, we went to see the four temples. 1) Temple of Sun, 2) Temple of Wind, 3) Temple of Water and 4) Temple of Earth. The explanation of all the buildings in the area was interesting. They were all built differently. One group of buildings is very architecturally sound. All the blocks fit each other very well and in a very neat way. Those are the temples. The others are more rugged and those are the homes, houses where people live. They used grass on their roofs to camouflage the buildings. Those kinds of roof also helped smoke to escape the buildings when they were cooking so that the smoke did not get stuck in the buildings.
We saw so many things. It rained and rained and we went back to the entrance. At the entrance, we started our hike up the mountain. Wow, we were so tired and extremely out of breath! Some of us started to ask ourselves why we decided to go on the hike, why did we decide to walk up? We stuck it out and thought positively. Some of the steps were very narrow, and some of them had very steep drop offs on the side. The steps were uneven, rocky and it was hard. We went all the way and finally arrived at our destination. We felt so good- we had accomplished something! We took pictures and it finally became sunny. We could see everything much better than when it was rainy and cloudy. We went back down and it was really slippery. I ended up slipping down and slamming my finger (Jen's note: See Caldonia's finger!!) When we arrived at the bottom, we took more pictures because it was sunnier and we could see everything more clearly than when we first got there.
After that, we had some free time. Many of us went to bed early! That's it J
The entrance to Machu Picchu. It was raining and very cool. You can almost see nothing in the background (all white!)
The students are walking on the stairs and exploring Machu Picchu.
The Sundial. It was used by the Incas in the 1400s and 1500s. Unfortunately, a commercial was made there and the crane broke. This left a huge chip and the Sundial is no longer working.
Another group picture before we went hiking up the Machu Picchu mountain. It was just starting to clear up.
Joi walking up the stairs. The hike took us 2.5 hours roundtrip.
The best group picture of us! You can see Machu Picchu in the background. We climbed 2000 feet.
