Peru -- Primarily Machu Picchu (Dec 2010)

I believe these two photos (which are not shown here in the exact sequence they were taken) were both taken after I had crossed to the north side of the city (a second time) and had started up Huayna Picchu. I'm pretty sure these both show various portions of the trail up that mountain (after had gone down into the gorge mentioned previously, and then started upward).

It's called a trail, but really it's more like a series of steep stone staircases, one after the other.

My memory is the guidebook (or maybe information I'd seen near the entrance to the archeological area) said they only allow 400 people a day onto this trail, with the last entry about 1 pm (may not remember the time correctly). I had timed things to get there perhaps 20-30 minutes before the cutoff time (whatever it was). I wasn't sure I would be allowed onto the trail, but I figured there was a good chance they would not be oversubscribed, since the archeological area had not seemed too crowded in the morning (and the weather was not great, and there did not seem to be a large proportions of younger people -- the prime mountain-hiking age) among the visitors. Turned out I signed the log book as #318 for the day. When I got back and signed the register book to indicate I was exiting the area, I believe they had something like 350 signatures in the book for the day.