Monday, January 6, 2014

Machu Picchu: The Wonder of the World

      Machu Picchu is an ancient Inca city that they almost purposely make it hard to go to. Bus, (2 hours) train, (1hour 40 min.) bus (30 min.). Total time: 4 hours 10 minutes app. Machu Picchu is on the edge of the jungle, so we could see the Amazon, but still in the mountains. And to be categorized, I don’t know which category in the 7 Wonders of the World – man-made or naturally-made – it would go in. There’s a mountain named Machu Picchu, but also a city named Machu Picchu, so you can see that it’s hard to tell.

 Transportation
First we took a small bus to the train station. Then we took a train. Lily and I thought it was AWESOME because we had never been on a train before.

City of Machu Picchu

This tree was the only one in the main part of Machu Picchu. Kai got a pretty good Panorama, didn't he?            


These stairs are for agriculture. There was a different plant on each stair (I think). 
 
 This is the temple of the condor. See the two gigantic rocks? Those are the wings all spread out, and the big rock on the floor is the body with the white rock as it's white collar, around the neck. The condor is Peru's national bird.
 
 When we were walking out of the city, Mom saw this staircase. It led up to this big flat rock, and we wondered what it was for.

The Mountain and Its Surroundings
The mountain behind the city is called Wyna Picchu. At the top, there are more ruins. The summit is 9,000 feet high.









These are the ruins at the top of the mountain. We didn't get the special ticket for that.










From the temple area, you could see this mountain and I thought the lighting was amazing. The camera didn't really capture the lighting, though. 

This is the Amazon river. It goes all the way around Machu Picchu. It looks really dirty.

Animals
We were making our way to another section of the city when we saw a flock of llamas. Then we started walking towards the house area and a llama lifted its head from behind a rock right in front of us! Whoa!
We were on our way out when Mom saw a millipede! It was black, with red legs. They moved like waves. Scary!
Rainbows (best for last!)
 
There are often rainbows, since it rains a lot at Machu Picchu, but there is still tons of sun. The coolest rainbow started like this...
...and went to this. The mountain the rainbow is over is to the right of Machu Picchu, and it's named Happy Mountain. You can see where the rainbow ends, right? You could see both, if the camera was higher quality. Renen said there isn't gold because the Spanish took it! Here the rainbow's a double rainbow.
Now it's this! Some of us even could see a faint triple rainbow! And double in thickness!
P.S. if anyone wants to know if there is a place in Peru that I went to, I will be taking post requests!