Machu Picchu in the morning

Doreen and I are very compatible. We enjoy the same sort of food, our taste in design is similar, we agree where to spend money and how to make investments.

But one of the areas where we are MOST compatible is the fact that we are both morning people. Sometimes very early morning people.

This worked out especially well on this trip, as there were many times that we had to get up early to either catch a plane, a car, or a sunrise.

And the sunrise at Machu Picchu was worth it.

We got out of bed about 5:30, which is pretty normal for us (although the altitude made us very bad sleepers during the Cuzco part of the trip).

We had some coffee, and some granola and walked out the door to this:

And, it turned out, this:

 The first bus leaves from Aguas Calientas at 5:30, so there were already people in line when we got there about 5:50.

But because the park is so big, everyone found their own place to watch the sun rise.

Here is the classic Machu Picchu view before the sun came over the mountains:

And here is an example of their plumbing:

The silhouettes of the mountains were quite spectacular:

and we decided that the best place for us to watch the sunrise was the Inca Trail.

Here is Doreen, hoping to hitch a ride:

But we walked

and walked.

That is where we ultimately ended up:

but we stopped at a nice clearing before we got there to watch the sunrise:

It was going to be a beautiful day:

The dawn is very short in The Tropics, and when the sun comes up, you had better be ready.

Here is the sun hitting the range behind Wayna Picchu

Here we are in our niche. Some French ladies joined us there, and took our photo:

Now you can see the sunlight just touching Wayna Picchu:

and starting halfway over Machu Picchu:

Once the sun was up, we kept walking to the Sun Gate:

It was not as bad a walk as we had feared:

 Early in the morning there are not many people around:

The size of the works is just amazing.

And the sky was very blue this day:

When we were wandering about the grounds, we ended up having to crawl up this stairwell:

it was so steep we had to climb it on our hands and  knees!

They had llamas all over the place. Doreen had boosted some raisins from the granola bar as a treat for the llamas. They liked them. 

Here is that two story house again, from the second story. It looks better from here:

One last look at Machu Picchu, and we were gone.

Just like this flycatcher.