Kara and Nate Buchanan document day five of a multi-day trip with Mountain Lodges of Peru, focusing on their visit to Machu Picchu. The video follows their early-morning arrival (about 6:30am waiting; ~7:30am entrance), a guided tour of the ruins in rainy/foggy conditions, an attempt to climb the peak Wanu (two-hour round trip) for views that were largely obscured by clouds, and their return trip to Cusco. They reflect that, despite limited views of Machu Picchu, the broader cultural experiences (local villages, traditional meals, hiking) and service from Mountain Lodges of Peru were highlights.
Questions this video answers
Day five.
About 6:30 in the morning.
About 7:30.
About two hours round trip.
Chapters
That's Machu Picchu right there.
Today is day five on our trip with mountain lodges of Peru and today we go to Machu Picchu.
It is about 6:30 in the morning. We are about to jump on the buses to go to Machu Picchu. It's currently raining and a little misty right now that today is our only chance to see Machu Picchu. So we're really hoping that it clears up.
We're super excited.
We are currently waiting in line for the public bus. We were told this could take us to an hour. Looks like we're going to wait less than five minutes. So the morning is off to a great start. This is.
We have just arrived to the entrance of Machu Picchu. It is about 7:30 and it is pouring. Also, if the vlog is a little bit shaky today, there are no tripods allowed, which means our big stabilizer isn't allowed. There's no commercial filming allowed. So we've taken the mic off of our camera. We're trying to go discreet here.
We are officially at Machu Picchu. This ability is very small, but our guide said it normally lifts, so we have high hopes. We are climbing straight up this mountain to hopefully have a panoramic view of the whole thing.
Mystical march.
So as soon as we arrived at the viewpoint, there was a break in the clouds. We were able to see Machu Picchu and then like five seconds later, all the clouds came in. And now it gets even better. Hopefully this will keep happening on and off throughout the day so we'll get to see it from different viewpoints.
Hopefully mostly off.
Yes. Yeah. Hopefully all the clouds will just go away.
We just walked on the end of the Inca trail for a little bit. Now we are on top, top of the city of Machu Picchu, overlooking it. It's going in and out of the clouds. As our guide Delmiro is telling us about the history, I learned that they're still finding new things. Like they just found a cave last year with paintings in it. It just shows that it's even older than they thought it was.
I think the craziest thing about all of this is it's all just speculation because the Incas had no written language. So everybody is just totally guessing at why the city's here, how it was built, what they used to do here. It's crazy how much they really don't know about it.
So mysterious.
The clouds set the mysterious tone for the day.
Like this, for example.
No.
1911. 1911 or no, we are about to.
Enter the main gate of Machu Picchu.
I've been in your waters.
Been knocking at your door?
I know one thing for sure.
I've.
Never been so close before.
It's one way or the other.
This is the name of sundial.
No way in between.
I ain't getting any younger.
You will stay forever dream.
You were truly my.
But it was over so fast.
Just one thing to discover.
No, it was never built to last?
You just fall in and out of love.
So we're wandering through the city and we've learned that a lot of the city has been rebuilt. And you can tell because the imperial Inca style, they all of the rocks fit together perfectly with no mortar. And over here is the rebuilt version which has all the mortar in the middle of it. And totally different. This that was built 50 years ago.
Way worse than this that was built hundreds of years ago.
So we just finished our city tour and now we've gotten to the part of the day that I'm most excited about. We are climbing up Wanu, which is the mountain that sits above Machu Picchu. Only a few hundred people a day get to do this and we got the tickets. So we're about to climb up two hours round trip. And we're hoping that the clouds clear and we'll get to see Machu Picchu.
That's where we're going.
This trail is no joke. It's a lot of stairs.
We've gone up like a thousand stairs. I can't see the top yet.
Made it to the top.
We're in this little house thing. Everything is white. Hopefully we wait a little bit, it'll clear out because it just started raining. Maybe it'll move for clouds.
Oh, we're not at the top.
I lied.
We're not at the top. Came out of the house thing. There's more stairs.
We have officially made it to the top. It's raining. There's a large cloud behind us. Machu Picchu is nowhere in sight. I think we still got like 15 minutes crossing our fingers. Hoping this opens hike was hard. Hoping the clouds will clear. Machu Picchu is somewhere.
In there.
I didn't get to see it from the top. It's time to head down now. Kind of a bummer. It was a really cool trail. Glad we did it.
Still can't control the weather. Wish we could, though. Wow.
This is intense.
I'm really glad I don't have both backpacks.
Yeah.
This is crazy. What was that?
That was awesome.
Ow. Gosh.
We can see it again.
That's where we came from. All the way down. We just made it to the end of the trail. My poncho has turned into a fashionable shoulder poncho. Honestly, at this point, I don't know what's rain, what sweat. A tough trail, but a really good one. Even though we didn't get to see Machu Picchu, now we are heading back through the ruins to get on the bus. We have lunch at our hotel. We take the train back to the town that we came from. And then ultimately tonight we're going to end up in Cusco. Let's go.
So the food has been good all week long, but the food at this lodge is like really, really good. We all basically licked our plates. It was exactly what we needed after such a long day of hiking. Now we're going to the train station.
Sam.
It's just.
So we just got back to Cusco. We had an hour and a half van ride from the train station. We have had the best five days with mountain lodges of Peru. I really had the best time, especially because James and Christy were here. It made it even more special.
Thanks for coming, mom and Daddy. Also, some people could, like, watch today's video and feel like, oh, because it rained or it was foggy the whole time at Machu Picchu, it was like a waste of a trip. But to be completely honest, we don't feel that way at all. I mean, sure, it was a bummer that it was really foggy, but had it been completely perfect weather, Machu Picchu would not have been the high of this trip.
It definitely would have been cool. But we've had so many other experiences this week that just were mind blowing.
Hiking through the local villages, hiking through the fields of llamas, getting to eat the traditional meals that were cooked under the ground. Like, those were the big highlights for us. Not Machu Picchu with thousands of other tourists.
Yeah, Another big thing is I don't think we saw any tourists for four days until we got to Machu Picchu. So it was just a totally different day. I don't feel like it, like ruined our trip because we didn't get to see all of Machu Picchu.
When you say you're booking a luxury tour somewhere, people think of like, oh, just like staying in a nice hotel and not experiencing any of the culture. And that was not the case at all with our trip with mountain lodges of Peru. They were taking us to local villages that they do work in and that they have partnerships with. And we were the only tourists there. So we were truly getting to experience the culture without any other tourists. All the times we were hiking, we had a local hiking with us, taking the horses or the donkeys. It was a fantastic five days. Thank you so much, mountain Lodges of Peru, for having us.
Heartfelt good night.
We're at the end of the rainbow.
Hola. Hola. Welcome to the vlog.
It's not a very big smile. Just kidding. Yeah, my head's kind of cut off. Is that okay? Yeah.
