Day four of the trek was our last day that Filio would wake us with our coca tea at our tent. Kay jammed on his clothes and practically ran out of the tent to see if the sun was coming up yet. He was really excited to see this view.
I on the other hand, took my sweet time putting my clothes on and properly waking myself up and rolling up my tent things before I came out with my big camera. 
No stress, the sun was still rising!
Kay still enjoying his coca tea.
The view was pretty spectacular and the photos don’t really do it justice. We were waiting for the sun to rise high enough to just hit the peak of Machu Picchu in the valley below.
Behind the campsite we could still see bits of mountains we’d left behind.
I have to say, not just for the photos at sunset and sunrise, but we were really lucky that it never was raining while we were at the campgrounds on our whole trail. Even though we were often walking in rain, it wasn’t an issue when it came to relaxing or going to bed. Thank you, mother nature!
This view was almost as amazing as Salkantay on the first day.
Around 7am we got on the road on the way down to the hydro power station on the way to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu.
Signs that we were getting closer, the excitement in the group rose! By this point, we were also having a really nice time talking with everyone in the group. It was a great mix of people and Kay and I both really enjoyed our walking partners.
Once we got to the tracks we started walking along them, which admittedly was not really as fun as the rest of the trail. This part was a little boring, but it happens as soon as you get close to the tracks to Aguas Calientes.
We also had to watch out a bit for cars and trains at the last point. We had enjoyed almost our entire three days of trekking as the only trekking group in the area, so it was kind of weird to be around people again.
We arrived in town mid-day and were checked into a hotel for the night before we were given the afternoon off to explore town and visit the local hot springs.
Kay and I ended up being the only ones who thought that soaking in natural hot springs sounded like a great way to soothe our poor muscles after four days of hiking. We also both got a full body massage in town before dinner and it was… heaaaven. I think I forgot which country I was in.
It doesn’t look it from these pictures, but the weather was actually really sunny and warm and gorgeous in Aguas Calientes. We crossed our fingers that it would stay like this tomorrow for the big trip to Machu Picchu!
For dinner, we had a farewell dinner in a restaurant with Alpaca Expeditions. Our porters and chef would be going home from here and only our two guides, Valentine and Filio, would be taking us on to Machu Picchu the next day.
We made sure to order Pisco Sours for the table!
After dinner we all walked back to the hotel for an early night because like many others, we planned on taking the first bus up to Machu Picchu in the morning.
Up next, the grand finale!
Alpaca Expeditions was founded by a retired porter and Inca tour guide. Their fantastic, professional tours specialize in sustainable tourism both by supporting local farmers and by paying fair wages to local porters, employee health/life insurance, and respecting local labor laws. The company also has social projects for children’s needs and they even work to help porters and their families to visit Machu Picchu, something that many locals in the area are never able to do on their own. By supporting Alpaca Expeditions, you can help them give back to the community and support the local Andeans.
More from our trip to Peru:
After a couple hours’ hike, with a little more rain, we landed at a “real Starbucks” as they said, where we learned about how coffee beans are harvested, shelled, and roasted over a hot fire in local kitchens.
It was hard not to notice the kitchen was full of guinea pigs, which our guide explained that many families keep guinea pigs in the kitchen where it is warm and then they eat them from time to time.
They were sooo cute and made this adorable, very odd squeaking noise for food when we fed them. There’s a video further down in case you want to hear. 🙂
I only felt moderately guilty for having eaten one of these little guys in Puno.
Our coffee was roasted and then it was time to taste it, and boy was it good!
We liked the coffee so much we bought two bags to bring back home. This is another reason why having a big bag was useful. We of course put it in Kay’s pack. 😉
Afterward we started climbing UP again, which I wasn’t really ready for. The longest Kay and I ever hike is two days back and forth, so my legs were definitely protesting and didn’t understand why I kept forcing them to do hard work in this altitude.
Finally we reached the top of Llactapata, where we had just a little way to go. I was pretty pooped out.
From here we only had a couple porters carrying our things on their backs, as well as our chef who was with us for the whole journey.
This campsite is rarely used by others because it’s a bit out of the way, it’s not really “on the way” to Machu Picchu, but it offers undisturbed views of Machu Picchu from a distance, so we arrived early to watch the sun set and to get up early to see the sun rise the next morning.
Along the way on this trail were also some Inca ruins of what could have been prayer sites pointed towards Machu Picchu.
We set up for our last night of camping and enjoyed our usual popcorn and tea snack before watching the sun set.
Dinner was in a room right on the ledge, with views over Machu Picchu. Pretty amazing backdrop. 🙂
Below in the center, you can start to see the light hit Machu Picchu. I needed to zoom in to see it better, but it was magnificent from faraway and a totally different view of Machu Picchu that many people don’t get to see.
Seeing the preview for the last day just made us even more excited. We were all praying the rain would hold off by then.
I mean, look at it!
It was pretty cold in the morning while we packed up and headed to breakfast. Kay was in his element as you can see. 🙂
The hike on the second day from Huayracmachay to Rayampata was downhill and pretty easy going. I was even at the lead of most of the hike since downward hiking is my thing. 🙂
Below is a video showing how you toss the gold coins and try and get them in the holes or the frog’s mouth for points. Valentine was amazing and he beat all of us! I don’t think I even managed to score a point.For lunch we enjoyed some more delicacies by the hand of our chef. Working with local food and food portered along the route, he was very creative for camp food!
Also more soup, which we really appreciated because it was mostly raining this day. It was actually pouring all during lunch.
And the main course, which was again fantastic. I get hungry just looking at the photos again. Lots of potatoes and cassava.
From our lunch spot at Colpapampa, we hiked a bit further than planned to around Lucmabamba.
Here we hiked through a little village and camped at the outskirts. Below is the sign for the local school zone.
We arrived at campsite number two a little earlier than the day before. The grounds even had two showers, one lukewarm and one cold. I passed on showering, but ended up putting a lot of bug spray on that night to ward off the mosquitoes.
From there we enjoyed a nice sunset with some very pretty colors in the sky.
While people were showing before dinner, many also decided to dry out some of their clothes that had gotten wet during the day either from rain, sweat, or both.
Here Valentine told us another funny story about the river rising during one of his camping trips. During the night, the river rose swiftly and was making a fast, rushing sound. The locals started getting alarmed that a dam would break and flood the area within minutes, so they started to pack up and head to safety.
I went to bed later that night so nervous about the river that I had nightmares about it rushing up and carrying our tents away. I had even prepared my things so that if I needed to rush out in the night, it would have been possible. I did not sleep very well that night. 😛
Dinner was tasty as usual. This time it was chicken legs and some kind of potato wedges. 
We ate until we stuffed ourselves silly and then Valentine told us lots of stories about the history of Peru, political leaders, local traditions… also crazy things like 
I braced myself that this was going to be awesome somehow, or that I would survive at the very least. I was pretty low mentally, that this was how I was experiencing my way to Machu Picchu: period from Hell, freezing rain, stomach issues.
Inside the basic shelter where the cook was set up, the guides set up a funny burning (kerosin?) lamp above Kay’s head. We told the guys to be careful getting up so they wouldn’t light their heads on fire. 🙂
