Machu Picchu

I recently returned from a two week trip from Peru, where I had two vacations in one. The first week I visited Machu Picchu and the second week, I traveled six hours up river from the city of  Pucallpa into the Amazon rain forest to help build a church in a Shipibo village along the banks of the Ucayali river. I'll post more pictures from that part of the trip in the coming days.

After a plane to Lima and then the next day to Cuzco, we took the train to Aquas Calientes to spend the night before getting up early for the sunrise at Mach Picchu. Unfortunately, and I suppose as is typical, it was clouds, heavy fog and rain. The sunrise would have to wait for another time. After five hours of miserable wet and rainy weather, during which time my camera barely made it out from underneath my rain poncho, the sun finally broke through and my second trek through the ruins began.

As many of my frequent blog visitors know, I am a big fan of HDR photography, and I knew the only way I was going to capture some new and unique images of a location that must be photographed thousands of times a day was to capture the place using this technique in liberal, albeit not over the top fashion.

The most challenging aspect of my photography that day, was avoiding the many hundreds of visitors in the ancient ruins. In one instance, I waited for close to 40 minutes in the hopes of capturing the sun-dial without the distraction of the throngs leaning into it in the hopes of extracting some cosmic energy. I pulled two shots off.

Machu Picchu is truly a magnificent wonder. The Inca's were clearly master masons and their work remains today as a testament to that dedication. The Princess' Palace is one such area that illustrates their mastery .

At every turn the vista's that greeted us were amazing and it is not hard to understand the many reasons the Inca chose this location to build the Palace. It was a sight to behold. It was one of the most amazing places I have visited and will forever be an adventure to remember.

Thanks for stopping by.