This is the view that makes four days of hiking along the steep Inca Trail worth the effort. Machu Picchu is without a doubt one of the most amazing places in the world!
The Inca Trail is one of those places that everyone dreams of visiting one day. The magical experience that you’ve undoubtedly enjoyed many times in your dreams, actually exists when you arrive at the start of the trail! Hiking the Inca Trail is without question one of the best experiences of my life and it is a place that I hope everyone has the opportunity to explore someday.
I took this picture back in 2009, looking down the trail I had just walked up while resting with other friends in my group.
One of the reasons Machu Picchu is near the top of the list of best places to visit in the world is because of the incredible way in which you can complete your journey to get there from where you are sitting right now. There is a famous ancient trail that hundreds of years ago was used by the Emperor of the Incas to ceremoniously journey to Machu Picchu. Today the path, known as the Inca Trail, is open for people to hike over a four day period through multiple environments and mountain passes before reaching the Sun Gate looking down on the grandeur of the ruins of Machu Picchu.
Will and I hiked the Inca Trail at the start of our trip around the world back in 2009. Here are a few of the steps that we passed over midway through the incredible journey. There are not many travel experiences I can recommend over hiking the Inca Trail. If you have the opportunity – don’t think twice.
These ruins are the first big set of ruins you encounter on the Inca Trail. I remember when we first saw these I was pretty amazed, but knew that it was only going to make Machu Picchu that much more impressive. The ruins were very far away from where we were hiking, but with the power of the Nikon 18-200 telephoto lens, we were able to bring the ruins a bit closer.
One of the more impressive parts of this ruin to me are the terraces that wrap around the mountain. They are mesmerizing in some way to me. In fact, if you look at the bottom-right of the photo, there are two large terraces leading down to the farming lands below. This is not only amazing in general, but even more amazing to think it was built 500 years ago without a single piece of machinery.
