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Published: September 29th 2010
Where to begin in describing Machu Picchu? It is obviously a magnificent site; it wouldn’t be so famous if it wasn’t. And it’s the most visited attraction on the continent. For me, the main problem was the hassle getting there. There are no roads to it, so the standard choices are a multi-day trek or a super expensive train ride. I had planned to get 90% of the way there on bus and then walk the last 2 hours, as this would have worked out at around half the price of the cheapest tour package available. Unfortunately for me, I found out the day before I was due to go that there was a strike planned for the next 2 days, and no public transport would be operating. Obviously this was very annoying, not least because had I known beforehand, I would have gone to Machu Picchu first and left the Cusco Inca sites for when the strike would be on. I could have stayed in Cusco for an extra 2 days with nothing new to do, but in the end I decided it would be better to try and go with an agency, pay more than I was going to,
but at least not waste any time. Most agencies had cancelled their trips, but I found one that was leaving in the evening by minivan, in order to arrive at a town near to the site before the strikes started. So even though I’d already paid for the hotel room for the night, I left Cusco at 10pm with 8 other passengers and the craziest driver I’ve ever come across. Despite going ridiculously fast and overtaking on blind bends, we arrived at the town of Santa Teresa at 4:30 in the morning, where we slept for a few hours in a rather basic hostel. At 8am I got up to find everyone else had disappeared from the hostel, barring the other Brit with whom I was sharing the room. The hostel owner told me some crazy story about them already being at Machu Picchu, but eventually our guide found us (he’d evidently forgotten about us). After another half hour drive, we arrived at the Hydroelectric Plant, where the road ends and the railway to Cusco via Machu Picchu starts. The agency claimed that there would be trains on this short section of the line, but they clearly didn’t have a
clue what they were talking about. As there were no trains, it was a 10km walk to the town of Aguas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu. I had no problem with the walk, but some of the other people in the group had brought so much luggage with them (they were clearly expecting to take the train as well!) that it took us, as a group, ages to get to Aguas Calientes. When we eventually got to Aguas Calientes, we had the rest of the day to do nothing. The tour included a rather dirty hostel and lunch and dinner at a terrible restaurant (the two Japanese girls ate virtually nothing of either lunch or dinner as the food was so bad, and I couldn’t finish my meal as my vegetarian soup had rather more chicken than most vegetarian soups). This was a bit of a shame given that Aguas Calientes was full of seemingly good restaurants. That evening we decided who wanted to walk to Machu Picchu and who would take the $14 bus, and out of our group I was the only one who wanted to walk. I had to leave the following morning at 4am,
The Temple of 3 Windows
The left window, symbolised by a snake, represents the underworld
The centre window, symbolised by the puma, represents the present
The right window, symbolised by the condor, represents the future (heaven)though the rest of the group had to get in the bus queue only a short while later. The walk from the town to Machu Picchu wasn’t too difficult - half an hour of walking on the flat, then a 50 minute climb. And there were hundreds of people climbing at the same time, so it wass impossible to lose your way. I was at the top before the first bus arrived, which is important as if you want to climb Huayna Picchu (the big mountain overlooking the city), you have to be one of the first 400 in the queue. But as it turned out, due to the strikes, hardly anyone had been able to visit, so there were between 300 and 400 visitors instead of the usual 2000. Our guide was supposed to escort the rest of the group on the bus, but he never showed up at the hostel, so they came by themselves and we sat wasting time at the top waiting for him to arrive, which he eventually did. Entrance to Machu Picchu is $46, though this was included in the price of the tour. Officially, there are strict rules onr what you can take
in, so I had to leave my small bag in the left luggage office (paying for the privilege), but others managed to get in with their full size backpacks. We had a 2 hour tour with the guide of the principle sites, which was all really interesting and well explained, before we then had free time to climb Huayna Picchu and explore any other areas by ourselves. Most of the site is taken up with agricultural terraces, which stretch from the top of the citadel (2400m) to the river valley below, in order to grow a variety of different fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants. The citadel only ever housed around 500 people (compared to the 300,000 in Incan Cusco), so there aren’t that many houses. They believe that Machu Picchu was more of a religious and academic site, so there were plenty of temples. The two most important, the Sun Temple and the Moon Temple (of which the latter is a 45 min walk away from the centre) were closed for excavation/refurbishment. As there are so many visitors every day, a lot of the pathways and buildings are suffering as a result - in many ways Machu Picchu is a
victim of its own success.
The main reason why Machu Picchu is so much more famous than the other Inca ruins in the area is that it was never discovered by the Spanish, and therefore was not plundered of its treasures. The site as a whole was not rediscovered until 1911 when American explorer Hiram Bingham, with the help of local guides, came across it. But then the same problem occurred - the best artifacts and most of the mummies were taken to the States, where they still are today. During the tour the guide was constantly pointing out the damage done by this original expedition. He clearly wasn’t Hiram Bingham’s biggest fan. As the Incas abandoned the city (only 85% complete) and the Spanish never arrived, no-one actually knows what its real name was. Machu Picchu, meaning Old or Ancient Mountain, was the name given to it, but it was probably called The City of Gold (or so our guide claimed)
After our interesting, albeit short tour with the guide, we then had time to climb Huayna Picchu (meaning Young Mountain), which is the mountain in the backdrop in the famous photos of the site. It was
a really steep climb, but didn’t take too long (about 35 minutes to the top), though as it was a bit misty, the views of Machu Picchu weren’t as good as I had hoped. At the summit there were ruined houses, so presumably the people who lived there would have had to have gone up and down all the time, which is not something I could imagine doing. Coming down, at least at the very top, was more difficult, just as the first few sets of steps were incredibly narrow
Once back down, I then headed for the Guardian’s hut, which is where the famous photos of the citadel with Huayna Picchu are taken. The views from here were undoubtedly the best, and what was also nice was the number of tame llamas in this area posing for photos with Machu Picchu in the background (at least until someone started to chase them). By this point, time was getting on, so I made my way towards the Sun Gate, which marks the end of the Inca Trail from Cusco. This was actually further away than I thought from Machu Picchu, and took a tiring 40 minutes to get there
(it’s the same height as the top of Huayna Picchu). The gate itself was nothing special, but the views, even though still slightly cloudy, were pretty amazing. By the time I got back from the Sun Gate, it was 12:30, which meant unfortunately it was already time to leave. I’d managed to see everything I’d wanted to see, but had to rush. After retrieving my bag from the left luggage office as well as the much needed food inside it, I headed for the steps down to Aguas Calientes. By this point was my myself, with everyone in the group already queuing to take the bus down, but as we were meeting at the Hydroelectric plant at 3pm, this didn’t matter. It was a tiring walk back, but even more annoying was the wait for our minibus at the other end, as well as the driver’s crazy antics on the road back to Cusco. We didn’t get back to Cusco until 10:30 in the evening, by which time everyone was shattered.
Once all the hassle of getting there was out of the way, Machu Picchu was amazing. Or at least it was the day I visited, just because there
The Sacred Rock
The shape of the rock mirrors the shape of the mountains (covered in mist) behind were so few people there - on normal days I’m sure I would not have enjoyed it so much, as it just wouldn’t have been as tranquil. So the strike probably did help me after all, even if it did cost me twice as much. But it’s not that much better than other Inca sites in the area - Choqoquirau for example, which I visited back in March, and definitely not as good as the ruins around Trujillo in the north of Peru.
I was only back in Cusco for a few hours. The morning after getting back I left my hostel at 5am to catch a bus for Ayacucho, in the Central Sierras. The next blog will come from there.
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