Grace and Allen's Machu Picchu Honeymoon/Day 6 Pictures (Day 3 Inca Hike)

Grace and Allen's Machu Picchu Honeymoon » Day 6 Pictures (Day 3 Inca Hike)

June 6, 2007 - Amazingly, today is already the third day of our four day hike to Machu Picchu. Our challenge today consisted mainly of climbing Runkuracay Pass (12,792 ft.) in the morning. The weather and view, like yesterday, was great. Compared to yesterday, it was a relatively short day. We arrived at camp at around 2 p.m. and had lunch at the campground. Grace would take a nice siesta in the afternoon while I'd wonder around exploring several of the nearby peaks. I also had a nice talk with Miguel, our head porter, about being a porter, their lifestyles, and the future of the Andean people in general. Miguel also told me about how he was working toward obtaining a "grade" (license) to be a full-fledged tour guide soon - perhaps as soon as December of this year. Supposedly being a guide for the Inca Trail is a very privileged and coveted position. We did more star gazing tonight, with Odon showing us various constellations from his star book (I was especially taken with the Southern Cross and the Scorpio). We all felt a little nostalgic today. This would be our last night of camping. One of the porters got out his banjero and played and sang a few notes for us before we turned in. The night would turn out to be a long one for a few of us. Aimee and Carin (sharing the same tent) would end up having symptoms of altitude sickness and/or food poisoning. They both had severe diarrhea and vomiting throughout the night. Amazingly, they would still be able to hike with us the next day and appeared all but recovered a couple of days later.