Aric S. Queen was on a quest to be the first person at the ancient Inca city of  Machu Picchu, Peru, on January first. However, that involves some high-altitude walking uphill first thing in the morning, and he despaired as other hikers passed him by. But at the gate, serendipity gave Queen the opportunity to go first.

Ten-plus years of travel, forty-plus countries, countless marvels, but this is the only place I cried at seeing.

One photo was snapped from my phone — those four seconds were the maximum amount of time I wanted to take my eyes off of it.

For 30 seconds, I sat in silence – not even realizing what I had just done.

It took the sound of footsteps behind me to bring everything back to the present. And it took the sounds of voices to realize that when I had first gotten up – there were none.

An estimated 1.2 million people this year, and I was visitor no. 0,000,000,001.

Read Queen's story and see a video of the adventure at Intelligent Travel magazine. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

(Image credit: Aric S. Queen)