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Published: June 16th 2008
When Santa Theresa was washed away 9 years ago they obviously whacked together this new city in a hurry and like that it has obviously stayed. Our room was right on the main square. Our door almost opened onto the street with half an inch gap of light around the door. We looked straight up at a corrugated iron roof and the wiring was at such a standard that when the light switch heated up Matt quickly turned it off and the hot plastic warped so you could not turn it on again. Add to this the local laborers being picked up at 4am with radios blaring, lets just say that it wasn´t the best nights sleep.
After a quick breakfast we headed up the river to Aguas Calientes, the base camp to Machu Picchu. We walked down the side of the bank as our guide was keen to show us something. We could hear a roar and looked up to see a small round opening literally in the side of the mountain with water gushing out the side of a cliff. This almost seemed man made with the water having tunneled down from the top of the mountain.
On we pushed up the railway tracks having to wait for several passing trains (lucky they are not high speed trains here). It just felt like the other valleys we had been in but as you looked up into the clouds above us, the guide pointed out we were trekking below the lost city of Machu Picchu as you could see an Inca path literally cut into the side of a granite cliff face. 2.5 hours later we wound around the mountain into Aguas Calientes, a small but busy tourist town (designed to get your money. The most expensive place we have been yet). We checked into our hostal dropped our bags off and had lunch. We then headed off to the peak of Putucusi (Happy Mountain) which is a nieghbouring granite peak looking down from the side of Machu Picchu. As we looked up into the clouds we realised we were about to work off our lunch and looking at the steepness of the cliffs it was hard to imagine how we would get up there.
As we set off along the narrow stone Inca stairs, the answer was soon apparent, ladders!! The first ladder we came across
was to be the biggest and made from branches wired to the cliff. It seems to stretch up as far as you can see. With a nervous laugh Matt started climbing and Leanne realised she had to follow trying not to think about coming down. With what seemed like an endless combination of steep narrow staircases and the occasional ladder, we reached the summit an hour later drenched in sweat. The design of the pathway out meant that rewards were not given to the very end and as we reached the summit there in front of us across the valley on the opposite mountain was the magical city of Machu Picchu. It is truly an amazing site and surrounded by steep mountains and jungle it is easy to realise why it was never discovered by the spanish and not discovered by modern civilisation until 1911.
We sat up here admiring the view for quite some time and we were contemplating our downward journey but before we could do this our guide asked us to join him in an ancient Inca cocoa leaf ceremony. We sat cross legged perched upon a large rock around the pile of cocoa leaves scattered
into the shape of a cross. The ceremony involved picking 3 leaves of different sizes, blowing into the wind and, chewing and burying some of the leaves while chanting some quechuan words. After Matt struggled to blow the horn, was told he picked the wrong 3 leaves as they were not different sizes and couldn´t remember the quechuan words he quickly lost interest. Leanne struggled to hold back her delight in watching this. After the ceremony it wasn´t far off dark so we made our retreat back to Aguas Calientes which was a slow and careful process.
We are now very excited about our trek at sunrise to Machu Picchu. So an early night as it is a 4am start tomorrow.
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Murray
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