Top of the mountain: A hike to Machu Picchu (Part 6)

By Simon J. Lau

Day 6 in Peru. Today, like yesterday, was relatively easy. We had a big breakfast and went zip-lining all morning. Eventually, we finished the evening hiking along the railroad tracks that led to Aguas Calientes (the city just below Machu Picchu).

This would be our last breakfast with our chef, Joan. Joan was only 22 years old, but you could tell he was very eager to do a good job. This is just one example of the hard work he put into our meals: Each of our pancakes had a unique caramel drawing on it. This was one of the simpler images, but he also made ones with llamas, a geographic outline of Peru, and other cute drawings. He also made it a point to combine some local cuisines with Western food. Overall, his meals helped make camping and living outdoors more enjoyable.

I did not bring my camera while zip-lining, so I do not have any photos to share of that experience. This was, however, my second time zip-lining, so it was not new to me. My dad, on the other hand, had never done it before and really appeared to enjoy it. He told me afterward, “Next time I want to camp here” (there was a place to camp on the zip-lining grounds). I laughed. There are still so many places he has not seen and he is already planning his return trip to Peru!

On a separate, but related note, I did find the most beautiful bathroom in Peru. The bathrooms at the zip-lining site were open-air and faced the forest. It is kind of an awkward bathroom arrangement, but worth mentioning!

This is a picture of the train tracks we followed for most of our hike today. This part of the trek was not as scenic as the other days, but I still enjoyed some of the mountaintop views from here. It was also along these tracks that I got my first view of Machu Picchu.

While hiking along this path we came across this bridge. We could either continue to walk along the train tracks or walk along the walkway to the right. What made this bridge kind of scary was that there were large spaces between the wooden tracks where you could easily slip between the tracks and fall into the river. Surprisingly, a few people chose to continue walking along the tracks anyway. Obviously, I was not quite as adventurous.

We found this guy after what was arguably my favorite lunch of the whole trip. Kenny suggested that we try this small restaurant just next to the train tracks. An older couple owned the restaurant and the food there was the best that I have had all week! After we got our fill and continued back onto the trail, this dog chose to follow us. It was cute because he could just balance along the tracks without falling. He eventually returned home when he realized we had no food to give him. Smart dog.

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