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Published: April 5th 2012
Saturday, March 31st, 2012
Machu Picchu, Peru
There are a lot of ways to get to Machu Picchu. For the more adventurous and physically apt, there's a 2 or 4 day hike along the historic Inka Trail. And for those pressed for time or just out of shape, there's a train/bus option. Of all the options of getting to Machu Picchu, we chose the old people way (train). Not because we ARE old, but because we didn't have time for the hike. A visit to Machu Picchu in this manner for those starting Cusco is a day long process. Much of the arrangements can be made in the city and even on the internet. But buyer beware! It can be a trying experience.
We planned ahead by buying our train tickets and park passes online. PeruRail was somewhat easy, but can be difficult if you don't have that online Visa-Mastercard pay protection thing. Buying the Machu Picchu park passes is a WHOLE OTHER BALLPARK. We made our reservations to the park on the government's website but failed to notice the fine print. In the fine print, you have to physically collect your reserved tickets in one of their offices
within 6 hours after making the reservation. In the end, we paid for the trip twice since our efforts were invalid.
We woke early, at 4 am. Took a taxi to the Wanchaq Bus Station where we caught our 5 am bus to Ollantaytambo. The bus ride was about 2 hours. At Ollantaytambo, you ride a luxurious train all the way to a little town bordering the historic structure, Aguas Calientes. The train could possibly make it there in 15 minutes if it didn;t stop every 5 minutes for no apparent reason. Getting to Machu Picchu is the most touristy thing you can do down here. Jen said she felt like she was at Disneyland. The train takes another 2 hours. Once in the village, we went to the office to convert our online reservations to park tickets where they rejected us and made us buy them again. The reason we purchased our tickets early was since the UN declared it a World Heritage Site, Peru imposed daily visitor limits on the trails and park to sustain the site. If you don't have a ticket, you don't see Machu Picchu.
After buying the tickets again at $60 apiece,
The Sun Temple
The sun dial, specifically.we had to go and wait in another line to purchase a round trip bus ticket to the actual site. That cost $34 for the two of us and the bus takes almost 45 minutes each way. Noticing a pattern?
Finally, after much frustration and annoyances we made it to Machu Picchu a little after 10:30 am (we got up at 4 am, mind you).
Was it worth it? Unless you´re Sally Wright-Mills, you bet it was. Sally, this place is your worst nightmare. To anyone whose afraid of heights, your fear will be tested. The site is larger than photos suggest; beautiful and absolutely jaw-dropping.
East Agriculture Sector As you pass the entrance, you first walk along a narrow path in the middle of the terraced agriculture section. Today, the area is filled with grass. The grass is pristinely trimmed, weed free, and complimentary to the precision stone facades which make up the site. Wandering freely throughout the site are llamas, which spend the day grazing and trimming the landscape.
Inka´s House To the right as you walk pass the terraces are the Inca homes. We spent some time navigating the maze of
apartments in the area. The homes provide stunning views to the mountains and hills towering over the river way below. Jen immediately noticed the clever storm drainage system. The rock surface was slightly slanted so that rains would wash to the drains that guided streams along gutters and eventually to spouts keeping the homes from flooding.
Condor Temple Between the Inca homes and terraces is the Condor Temple. This Temple has brick walls carved to replicate wings and a huge smooth triangular stone in the center forming the head and body. We didn't see anything mentioned in the reading material, but it looks like this was a man-made waterfall.
Sun Temple In the middle of the giant complex is the Sun Temple. At center of this open air temple is a sundial like rock resembling Waynapicchu overlooking Machu Picchu. The stone is aligned perfectly to north, south, east, and west. Coincidentally, also lining up with Waynapicchu and apparently 3 other sites not within site from the stone making the sundial the exact center in this religious and celestial complex.
Guardhouse The highest point in the complex is the guardhouse, which overlooks the area and
And now it
Statue with a bird on it. In the village near Machu Picchu. provides the most popular photographs of Machu Picchu. It´s pretty high up and if you're not acclimated to the altitude, it can be rough. Luckily for us, we came from La Paz which is higher than Machu Picchu.
The whole site, which is hard to describe, and even still not entirely understood by archeologists, is just one amazing place to see. Even if you have to schlep through all the touristy shit to get there. An older British lady, who we overheard chatting with her girlfriends as we approached the entrance, summed it up the best:
Why ever would Mister Bingham come up here?
We wandered around the site till about 4pm. Other parts of the complex close around 1pm because they can take awhile to hike and to ensure the visitors are off the mountain by sundown. So, there is potential to see more but you would need to stay overnight in the town of Aguas Calientes to plan accordingly. At the end of our visit, we boarded the bus back to the village. There we sat down for a snack and cerveza. Curtis ordered a grande cerveza, which means 1.1 liters of beer. He´s such a champ. He finished it in less than
an hour. After the snack, we boarded the train back to Ollantaytambo.
From Ollantaytambo, we completed our final leg to Cusco by bus, and arrived safely back in our hotel at 9:30 pm. Gettting to Machu Picchu is a full day experience and can be exhausting, but you'll love every minute of it at the end.
Sunday, April 1st, 2012
La Paz, Bolivia
We awoke again early to catch our plane back to La Paz. It sucks not being able to spend more time in Cusco. It's a beautiful city with a lot to do. But we couldn't handle another 12 hour bus ride. The plane took a whopping hour and a half to put us back in La Paz. Once back in the city, we found a new hotel, Hotel Fuentez which offered us very basic accomodations. We dropped our bags off and spent the rest of the day dining and shopping.
Monday, April 2nd, 2012
Happy Birthday Jen! It was Jen's birthday and our final day in South America. After such exhausting activites, we decided we would just spend more time relaxing, dining, and shopping. Shopping in Bolivia for handicrafts is cheaper than Peru.
They both offer basically the same things due to their regional proximity but offer it at a much lower price.
For Jen's birthday dinner, we ended up catching a taxi to the Sopacacchi district, which we hadn't visted yet. This district houses the majority of the embassies, nice hotels, and Peru's wealthiest denizens. We sought out a fusion Bolivian-Spanish restaurant only to find it was closed temporarily for repairs. We walked the streets till we found a restaurant offering local cuisine and had a pretty decent meal for our last night.
It was the perfect end to a perfect trip.
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