Machu Picchu (there are pictures up)

Link for Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/mansfield.fisher

We got back last night from Machu Picchu and it was one of the most amazing places I have ever seen. We did the four day hike on the original Inka trail that spans a around 45 kilometers. It took us four days and three nights and was one of the best experiences of my life.
Day 1: We were picked up around 6 am were we met two of the other people in our group. They were two friends from Switzerland names Alex and Raphael both of which turned out to be a lot of fun and made our trip even better. We went and picked up our 6 porters and our cook. Porters are the Peruvian guys who carry all the tents, pots, food, and everything thing else we need all of there bags weigh 25 kilos. We only carried clothes, some snacks, our sleeping bag and pad our bags averaged about 13 kilos. We drove two hours through the mountains where we ate a small breakfast and met the fifth and last person in our group his name is Carlo and is from Canada. We arrived at kilometer 82 (the starting point) and hiked an easy 7 or 8 kilometers to our first campsite. We soon learned that we were in an awesome group our guide was named Freddy and was a lot of fun. We arrived took a short nap and then had "happy hour" in which we had tea and popcorn and played cards. Freddy then prepped us for our hike the next day he told us day two was the hardest were we would climb about 1200 meters and would be about 7 kilometers. He told us the first 4 hours would be up hill and was divided into 3 three parts the first part being "gradual up hill" the second part being the worst with lots of steps more commonly known as the infamous "Inka Steps" and the third part being "gradual" as well. We would summit at Dead Women's Pass.
Day 2: we woke up at 6 and left camp about 7 for our agonizing hike that awaited us. From the beginning we realized we were in for a long day. We learned Freddy had a completely definition of gradual then we did and it would turn out no part of day two would be gradual up hill. As we trudged through the hike we were all awed by the porters. None of the porters are over 5 and a half feet and none weighed over 130 pounds yet they carried 55 pound bags and basically ran up the mountain. To make it even more incredible they all were wearing sandals made out of tires. We soon realized how incredible the porters are and how essential they are to making our trek possible. Dee and I summited around 1130 were we greeted by Raphael and Alex yelling our team name (the second day were the Alpacas) we celebrated with some skittles and water at the top. We did not stay for long because we were also greeted by freezing rain. We then descended 600 meters or so in the pouring rain for 2 hours. We arrived at our campsite where our porters had tea waiting on us of course they had probably been at the campsite for an hour.
Day 3:By far the longest day, day three began about 530 we were hiking 15 kilometers so we wanted to get and early start. We got up and had another awesome breakfast by our cook. Hernan, the cook, was an amazing cook and we ate like kings for four days. We had only been hiking for ten minutes when the down pour began. We hiked for 4 hours in the pouring, freezing rain. I am not sure if i have ever been that cold in my life the last twenty minutes to our lunch camp site was basically a sprint for our entire group. We arrived and once again our amazing porters had the cooking tent set up so we could have some shelter we all crowded inside the tent and began to unfreeze. The sun god was looking out for us that day because once we were done with lunch it cleared up and began a beautiful day. We finished that day in very high spirits as our hike was a lot easier then the morning and the sun was beautiful. Once again though we found Freddy's sense up gradual and steep to be vastly different from ours. We all found this hilarious and continued to give him a hard time about it. We arrived at our last campsite were there was a place we could get beer and have a hot shower. We shared a few drinks and listened to music and bonded as a group. We had a feast for our "last supper" as Freddy referred to it.
Day 4: We woke up at 3:50 so we could get to Machu Picchu as early as possible. We reached the Sun Gate about 630 were the sun god once again gave us a spectacular day. We saw and incredible view of Machu Picchu as we sat in complete awe of what we were witnessing. From there the day progressed as a day at Machu Picchu would we got a tour took lots of pictures and spent a day in heaven. Though is not very relevant to Machu Picchu minus the fact that it happened there it was quite funny and showed how well our group bonded together. We spent lots of time taking shots at each others countries they all picked on Dee and I because we were just a bunch of hicks from the south. We picked on the guys from Switzerland because they are just neutral in everything and the Canadian guy well he is from Canada so there are an endless amount of jokes. Carlo said to me "I cant believe your proud to be from the south because you know Texas is in the south" i shot back "woaaahh no we don't claim those idiots from Texas" and right on cue we were walking past a couple from Texas and they had a few words to say about that. But all in all Machu Picchu is absolutely incredible and I will never forget this trip. Our group was perfect we laughed continuously for four days as we all made jokes and had a blast.
Tuesday we are headed to Colombia to visit Jorge and are very excited.