Inti Punku

Inti Punku-the Sun Gate

A few friends and I went on an overnight backpacking trip to the Sun Gate out of Ollantaytambo, a town in the Sacred Valley. It was a tough climb starting from 2800 meters (9,000 ft) on the valley floor to 3800 m (12,400 ft) at the pass and the Sun Gate the next day. It took us two days (7 hrs) to climb 8km (less than 5 miles), and about half that to get back down. We has some stomach illness, a day rain shower, a night time thunderstorm, a rented tent with the wrong size polls, bulls blocking the path and it was beautiful!  Most of these pictures are courtesy of Carrie Tribble and Kristen Felix. 

Peru Rail headed to Machu Picchu

Day one climbing the pass

Relaxing in the after rain shower sunshine

Day 2: One of the rock quarries

Cow sitting on the path. We ended up making several large detours to avoid them.

The Sun Gate

The Sun Gate was thought to a military look out and/or used for making astronomical observations. It also alines with several imporant peaks and ruins in the area, as many of them do. This one faces the direction of Machu Picchu, on the other side of Mt. Veronica.  From the top we could the the Veronica glacier, Salkantay (another peak), the town of Ollantaytambo, and down several area valleys.