The best day, but still very hard. You hike the most mileage and we had two peaks to climb and some stairs going down, so Miguel wisely advised to leave about an hour earlier than everyone usually does. The second peak (first of the day) was hard. It was only 600 feet up in elevation, but it still took almost two hours. Stairs and stairs going up, up, up.
Us at the start of Day 3.
A porter running up the stairs. How do they do it?
At least the stairs can be pretty sometimes!
Then we had my favorite part of the entire trail (minus Machu Picchu of course) - the trail turned into a nice, rolling road that went up and down and occasionally had stairs, but it wasn’t bad at all. We passed more ruins and hiked in this beautiful tropical climate. Orchids everywhere, cool moss, water springs... Jared was taking pictures of all the plants - maybe 50 different flowers? And the orchids! My mother-in-law Kathy would have love it. Miguel knew all of their names.
Jared inside a carved tunnel. There were two of these along the trail on Day 3.
Jared and I walking the trail.
Orchids everywhere!
We passed several ruins in the first two days, but Day 3 gave us some very spectacular sites. One of the first of the day was a "look-out" ruin in the shape of a traditional knife. One of our favorites was quite large and had running fountains of water, 6 or 7 I believe (Machu Picchu has 16).
Knife ruins.
Another cool ruin - just amazing.
Running water!
Ruin in the hillside.
The third peak (second of the day) also was a little tough but very doable. But then we had another staircase going down! I hate those stupid downward stairs! We knew Day 3´s campsite had hot showers and I kept thinking those two words over and over again, "hot shower", and we got into camp at around 4:30pm.
Heading down the stairs, ruin in the background.
Us at the end of Day 3.
Miguel took Jared to a ruin that was near the camp and on a very steep hill. Jared loved it.
The camp site felt like a European hostel. We were all in tents still, but there was a cafe that served food and drinks and all the hikers were partying that night. Everyone was in good spirits to see Machu Picchu the next day.
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