Day3 and it's the most beautiful day yet 6/23/11

Up at 530 for breakfast at 6. Each day the wakeup call keeps getting earlier and the hikes are harder. We had a heavy uphill start to the morning but this time the weather was much warmer since we were at a lower altitude. The uphill was difficult like yesterday but I guess we were used to it by this point. Antonio started us off again telling us some history along the way, then he let us go and told us where we were going to meet. Andy hung back with us as much as possible and we stopped for pictures along the way. We could see the beautiful snow-capped mountains in the distance (Salkantay Mtns). As we continued downhill we reached warmer temperatures in the Andean rainforest where we saw lots of orchids. We had lunch on a peak with a beautiful view of the valley and mountains then continued on our decent. The flora and fauna was beautiful! So many flowers and colors, even the mosses were shades of red, green, yellow, and all the shades in between. The weather was perfect, sunny with some lovely white clouds around the mountains. I was so impressed at the beauty, I had no idea we would see this. The rocky path was still difficult to walk on, but we took our time. We saw the Sayacmarca ruins on our journey; the path also went through a cave where we took some pics. Another long day of hiking and we were ready for bed early. Antonio told us we had to get up early to get in line to leave the campgrounds.