Day 72: Jungle trail to Machu Picchu; day 4

---

Today had some high points and low points, literally and emotionally as we tackled our biggest hiking day yet up to Machu Picchu. Olly broke out in song the second earliest all trip, 3:55am!! I sprang out of bed in anticipation for the adventures ahead. Rach on the other hand didn't share my excitement, moving about the hotel room like a Galapagos tortoise.

We had a carbo loaded breakie of muesli bars, bananas and a yoghurt drink and met the rest of our tour group at the hotel reception at 4.30am. We walked down through the town and along the river, joining fellow trekkers in the dark as we walked towards the entrance point. It was pitch black so we were guided by flash lights to stop us walking off the edge and into the river!



We got to the entrance at 5am, showed our ticket and passport and walked across the bridge to begin our ascent. We had been pre-warned about the ascent; 2000 steps heading straight up the mountain. We kept together as a group, agreeing to have a break every time the walking path intersected the gravel road which the buses take the lazy tourists up on. It was pretty good going, and each time we took a break the night time seemed to get fainter and fainter, and we could make out the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains. About 3 quarters up, we ditched the flash lights as the sky lightened. We knew we were getting close to the summit when we could see the distinctive raised terraces of Macchu Pichu on the lower slopes. We rounded a bend and over the final few steps to the entrance point. We had made the ascent in about 1 hour - pretty good going. We all collapsed on the park benches, waited to regroup and shunted at the lazy tourists getting off the buses who took the $10 'easy-way-up' option. We laughed at one girl's hiking attire; tight jeans and high-heeled boots...seriously, what a dip!! We hopped in line, got our tickets stamped and met our guide, Wilbert just inside the gates (he'd taken the bus up but as Rach explained in yesterday's blog, he deserved a 'sleep-in'😉.So Wilbert took us up a path for 10 mins before telling us, 'welcome to my office', and we stepped out of the tree line and looked down on the famous Inca city of Machu Picchu. It was pretty spine-tingling. And not just because my sweaty shirt was getting cold on my back from the dawn mountain breeze. The site was amazing, sitting on top of the plateau were the Inca ruins, laying amongst green grass with the terraces sweeping down off other side of the mountain, the imposing peak of Huayna Picchu looking down over the site in the background. We had the most perfect morning too, not a cloud in the sky and we could see the snow-capped mountains surrounding us begin to turn orange with the pending rising of the sun.



Wilbert explained to us that the Incas chose the site of Machu Picchu as it sits within 3 massive peaks; Machu Picchu, Huayna Picchu and another one on the other side of the valley which I can't remember the name of (sorry!). They believed it held spiritual significance being overlooked by these peaks.



What's interesting about Machu Picchu is that it was never conquered by the Spanish. The city was abandoned for unknown reasons in 1533, and in some places construction simply was abandoned and we saw the remnants of half-finished buildings when the Incas decided to down tools and move on. It wasn't discovered by the western world until 1911 when an American explorer was guided to the site by a local family, in search of the long lost city of the Incas. Wilbert showed us one of the very first photographs of the site, which was nearly completely covered by jungle. Today, the whole site has been cleaned up and exposed, except for a couple of trees which sprout out in the middle of the main plaza.



We walked to the western edge of the site and looked way down below, we could see where we had walked from yesterday, seeing the hydro-electric construction and the valley. We walked down through the ruins, noticing the surrounding mountains had started to brighten as the sun had risen of them. We got to the eastern side and Wilbert pointed out the sun temple, a construction with 2 windows that perfectly lit up the centre on each of the 2 solstice. The Incas could tell the day of the calendar by looking at the rays of the sun as it shone through the windows; the solstices marking the end of the suns journey before turning around and venturing back again. As we were only 5 days away from the winter solstice, as the sun rose at 7.15am, the rays shone inside the temple almost perfectly straight indicating its almost the start of the Incan new year! The sun rise was beautiful, and lit up the site starting from Wayna Picchu peak, coming down and filling the site with colour and thankfully some warmth!



We continued our tour through the ruins, seeing temples where the Incas performed both animal and human sacrifices to their gods. We walked through the main plaza, getting up close and personal with a couple of llamas and alpacas who call Machu Picchu home.



At this point our guided tour ended and we said our goodbyes to our awesome guide Wilbert. Rach and I had additional tickets to climb Macchu Pichu mountain, the imposing peak on the southern side of the ancient city. We stopped to refuel, apply some sunscreen and basically try and delay the inevitable. We started to climb about 10am, we got our tickets checked at the checkpoint and signed in, numbers 45 and 46 in the order of stupid people attempting to get to the summit, some 3,082m above sea level. And the going was tough and rough, Rach's legs had turned to jelly after 3 days of trekking and the morning climb. She needed some gentle motivation to convince her she was ok to walk up, or that it would be ok if she decided not to tackle the mountain. After some emotional moment, she gritted her teeth, determined not to be a failure (her words) and pounded up the steps.
We kept a steady pace, stopping regularly to take in the view (and take in some much needed gulps of air and water). Rach continued to battle her emotions, my supportive words of 'we're almost there' falling on deaf ears. It was a test of our relationship and numerous times I thought I was going to have to leave Rach sitting on the side of the mountain. But to her credit she got up each time and powered upward, demanding her legs to keep going.
<br style="color:񮾑 font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;" />The climb was tough, massive stone steps which Rach described as the never ending staircase. Each time she stopped, she tried to convince me and herself that the view was good enough and why do we need to keep going. The peak was slowly getting closer and the view was getting more and more spectacular. The trail was pretty precarious in places, with the steps literally carved into the cliff face - a daunting drop welcoming us if we took a tumble at the wrong moment.On the final ascent after god-knows how many steps, I saw this brown snake sun-baking on the path. Thankfully he heard me coming and slithered off into the undergrowth. We finally completed the last couple of agonising steps, 2 hours after we signed in some 1,000m below us. Our photos of the summit don't give the view justice. It's amazing how the Incas chose this site to build their city, hidden away amongst all these peaks of the Andes. We could see far far down into the valley below to Aguas Calientes, amazed that's where we had come from in the wee-hours of the morning.



We found a good posy on the summit to sit down, enjoy the view and have some snacks. We got some folks to take some photos of us with the ancient city down far below us. We could see the snow capped mountain almost level with us, with a glacier melting its way down it's slopes. It was simply amazing. We rested for 30mins before we remembered what goes up, must come down; and we started descending. The trek down was a lot easier, although challenging as we had to negotiate the big steps, trying not to roll on ankle or our tired legs giving away at the wrong moment. We actually flew down, Rach indicating that given the state of her muscles, she literally couldn't stop her momentum. We flew passed others making the same descent and reached Machu Picchu in about 1 hour. Rach was over the moon, vowing she never ever has to hike another bloody mountain in her life.



We met the Canadian couple from our tour group randomly as they completed another trail to the Sun Gate. We got Jess to take a handstand photo for us, however were forced to stop and delete the photos by a local guide who yelled at us for 'disrespecting a sacred site'. A bloody handstand disrespecting the site!! How about letting 4000 bloody tourists trample all over the site each day. We were hand standing on a platform designated for tourist photos so we were pretty annoyed. We got a cheeky jump shot in before running away, the guide yelling into his walkie-talkie like the fun-police on a mission. We got away and hurried our way towards the exit to meet our fellow tour group at 1245. There was a chance to stamp our passports at the exit gate so we all have nice big Machu Picchu stamp now.<br style="color:񮾑 font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;" />



We took the bus back down the mountain to Aguas Calientes, unable to face the prospect of 2000 steps down. We basically fell out of the bus back in town and went into the nearest restaurant, starving hungry as we hadn't had a proper meal all day. We both went for Mexican options, burrito and enchiladas however Rach almost burnt her mouth by the sheer amount of chili in her meal. We chatted to the rest of our group, and relaxed for a while until 3pm.



We staggered back to our hostel to pick up our bags, and after getting an ice-cream made our way to the train station to catch the 445pm back to Cusco.
And that ends our jungle trail adventure to Machu Picchu, an amazing and exhausting 4 days where we have seen infamous site, down some extraordinary activities and thoroughly enjoyed our trip with Lorenzo. We're currently about 1.5 hours away from Cusco, looking forward to a nice hot bath and a good night's sleep at our flash hotel!!

---

Photos

In line at 5am...
and doesn't Rach seem happy about it

The sun rising over the sun temple
notice the sun light streaming through the window

Looking back towards Machu Picchu Mountain
At over 3,000m, we were preparing ourselves to tackle this beast!

Comments

[Henry]

Wishing To Visit Machu Picchu
Thanks to your blog. It increased my enthusiasm to visit it someday. Great job.