Finally after 3 days of hiking we reached the sun gate for our first glimpse of Machu Picchu. It was still far away but seeing it made the last few days completely worth it.
It is called the sun gate because it is located to the east of Machu Picchu so the sun passes through it as it rises.
It also guarded one of the few entrances to Machu Picchu – the Inca Trail.
It is pretty crowded when the big groups hiking the trail come in.
People were coming in all day. Other people hike up to it after visiting the main ruins.
We took a good amount of time just resting once we got to this point, partly due to exhaustion and partly due to just being ecstatic that we made it.
We made it to Machu Picchu and the whole day we were excited to get to this point. Even though there was still more walking ahead we survived the Inca Trail.
The switchback is the easy way up to the site by bus.
Although we made it my legs were turning to jelly and needed to use Kerri as a support.
