Machu Picchu, Mucho Bueno

Okay, so I know that's not correct Spanish, but it does have a nice ring to it. Right? :)

Jon, Jeff, Cindy, and I just returned from a vacation in Peru where we hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. It was quite possibly more physically challenging than my last marathons, but the views were spectacular and worth every step. We hiked for four days and climbed to an altitude of over 14,000 feet. Someone should have warned us in advance that the Inca Trail is more like the Inca Stairmaster though. Everything beyond the first mountain pass was either steep stairs (a.k.a., boulders) straight up or steep stairs straight down. Oh, my poor knees! We went with an amazing trekking company called Llama Path. They create such a flawless experience with teams of people who think of everything you need before you need it. While the hiking was challenging, the Llama Path porters made it seem like a luxury cruise at the end of the day. I had visions of competing on the Amazing Race each time we'd climb over another hillside and spot one of our porters in his red jumpsuit indicating that we had reached our campsite for the night. I was tempted to through off my pack, run to the pitstop, and wait for Phil to tell me we were the first team to arrive.

Every hillside, valley, stream, waterfall, and hummingbird seemed magical out there. We took so many pictures just because it was easy to be enamoured by the scenery. If you're interested in browsing, we've uploaded just a small sampling of our photos on our photo site.