You are going to love Machu Pichu, at least I did. I hiked into it after a few days of exploring the snow caps on horseback, and on the day we got there, in the morning the soup was so thick you could hardly see 10-20 feet in front of you. As we came around the corner and stopped to take a break, having no idea where we were, the fog blew through and the beauty of it all was in below us.......... really just breathtaking. The part I thought was craziest is that there is a solid piece of sacred stone, that if I remember is oriented as a sundial of sorts. When the Spanish came through they went throughout the country destroying these sacred stones b/c the natives thought they held special powers. They kept their power as long as they weren't damaged. They never found the one at Machu Pichu and so it survived. That was of course until the equivalent of Budweiser was filming a commercial on site and the boom crane of the camera chipped the corner off a few years ago. I heard they were going to put a gondola type system in. When I was there we were caught in a tear gas riot on the way down. I think one of the things i remember most about the trip is that the town right below, where you catch the train, just piles up all the trash next to the river. Once a day they crank up the bulldozer next to the river and push it all in. Same thing in Lima, we arrived during low tide and everyone was walking their bags of trash out to the beach, piled up over ten feet all down the beach, then high tide would come in and take it all away. Beautiful place, wonderful people, but you couldn't help but wonder if the tourist and the society they were bringing weren't ruining what brought you there in the first place. As a side note, I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed and been inspired by your trip, truly epic!
