Peru -- Primarily Machu Picchu (Dec 2010)

This photo and the next one are a temple built at a natural spring.

The upper portion shows a typical stone wall built by shaping stones to fit tightly into one another without any concrete or mortar of any kind. Well, perhaps this is not typical, but rather much better than average.

To get to this, we walked perhaps 1/4 mile on a trail that in Inca days eventually led to Machu Picchu (and some of their other towns). At this point, we were perhaps 65 or 70 miles from Machu Picchu. The Inca trail hike that tourists take starts closer to Machu Picchu. That hike covers 4 days, covering about the last 25 miles, with (as I understand it) the hiking part in the first three days. The 4th day you are AT Machu Picchu, arriving there -- at the Sun Gate -- at daybreak followiing a pre-dawn wake-up and breakfast. I did not do that, but Natalie Goff did it a few years earlier.