The view from our hotel room... in the general direction of Machu Picchu.

I know that it has been a while since we have posted and in that time we have been many places. We will have to do some catch up... but today we are here and I feel I have to write about it.

I sit now on the third floor balcony of Hotel Santuario (about 13 09.262's 072 31.603'w). The river roars over the boulders, all have been rounded and carved by millions of years of constant wear. The steep mountains rise out of the river to thousands of feet above our heads. Now they are lushly covered with vegetation, something we have missed for our entire visit to Peru. Until now we have only been west of the Andes which squeeze all the water out of the wind blowing from out of the east, keeping western Peru dry and with only the hardy arid plants and grasses.

Now as I look up, there are epiphytes, moss, and lichen clinging to the vertical cliffs. Trees and bushes cling to any crack in the rock while at the base of the cliffs, growing in all the scree slopes is a multitude of trees, each apparently with different shaped leaves of a variety of greens. Each of their branches is covered with epiphytes. Birds and butterflies (I can't ID one of them!) flit about.

All this means that we are on the edge of the Amazon Rain Forest. It is now obvious why the Incas found this place to build their last bastion... More on that tomorrow as that is when we will go to Machu Picchu.