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Published: March 9th 2016
After sleeping badly due to worrying about whether our early alarm would go off, we were up as planned at 5.00am to return to Machu Picchu in order to climb Huayna Picchu. We thought that we had ordered 'breakfast to go' but neither the front desk or the restaurant had breakfast boxes for us. Not to worry we just went into the restaurant and made ourselves a very small ham and cheese roll each and grabbed a petite coffee scroll-like pastry. All the serviettes were linen so the staff brought us some aluminium foil to wrap our breakfast in. We shoved our meagre breakfasts into our pockets and headed off for the bus station very excited that the weather was looking perfect for our second morning at Machu Picchu.
In preparation for today Bernie purchased our admission to Machu Picchu + Huayna Pichi before we left home and we bought our bus tickets last night. We arrived at the bus depot expecting a long queue at the ticket box and another for the busses, but we were able to board almost straight away and there was no queue to speak of at the ticket box. The bus was near full
though and we had no choice but to sit behind people who had their seats reclined. Inconsiderate people! With the back of the seat in front in our faces it was a very claustrophobic 25 minute ride up the mountain.
What a relief it was to disembark at the bus depot at the top! I felt like I could breathe again. We used the facilities and then made our way into the site showing our tickets and passports as per yesterday. It was very exciting entering the site just as the sun was about to rise over the mountains and flood the ruins with sunlight and there were very few people about at this pre-dawn hour. The sunrise that attracts the most attention is in June, I think Breytzi said it's the 23rd, when the sun rises from behind the Sun Gate.
Anyhow, as we made our way to the entrance for the climb up Huayna Picchu we glanced constantly back over our shoulders watching the sun create a dramatic back-lit silhouette of the mountains and then emerge from behind them to cast the first rays of a new day's sun upon Machu Picchu. WOW! what an added
bonus, as I don't think either of us realised that we would be at the site before sunrise! Unfortunately the photos may not be much good because someone (not me) was in a rush to queue up for the climb and that didn't leave much time for adjusting our camera settings for the back-lighting. Not to worry, we saw it even if we didn't nail a photo.
We reached the huts that mark the entrance to the Huayna Picchu climb and were pleasantly surprised that we were amongst the first waiting in line for the 7.00-8.00am admissions. In fact there were so few people about that we snuck behind a rock, out of sight of the site guides, and ate our bread roll and pastry breakfast. A little bit of carb loading for the climb, ha, ha!
We joined the queue feeling very old. Looking around at our fellow climbers we decided that there were only about three over 50, actually there were probably only three of us over 30!! Only 400 climbers are allowed onto Huayna Picchu daily. Two hundred are allowed to sign in for the early entry and another 200 are allowed to start entering
between 10.00-11.00am.
Yay, we reached the head of the queue and signed in at 7.10am the 32nd and 33rd climbers to pass the gate. We set out planning to complete the climb rather than set any records although Bernie was hopeful that we could complete the climb to the top and back before 10.00am so that we wouldn't encounter the second batch of uphill climbers.
Fortunately for us the climb this morning was on the shaded side of Huayna Picchu so that made it a bit more comfortable to undertake. There was a certain camaraderie amongst the walkers with the slower walkers (like us!) taking the opportunity to step to the side wherever possible to let faster climbers overtake and faster climbers never making us feel under pressure to hurry up. There was a great deal of cooperation and encouragement as we and our fellow climbers made our way up the mountain.
Breytzi told us yesterday that we couldn't stop when we reached the terraces that we had to continue right to the top of Huayna Picchu. After a stop on the terraces to catch our breath I headed off on the final ascent leaving Bernie behind.
When I realised I stopped and waited for him to catch up. It turned out that he had been trying to calm down a young English girl who had discovered she had a fear of heights and was having a bit of a panic attack. Her partner had left her behind in his single minded determination to complete the climb!
Finally, after squeezing through a rock tunnel and then clambering over rocks like mountain goats, we reached the summit which was very tiny and very chaotic. Everyone knew there was supposed to be an alternate way down from the summit, but no one could find it!! This resulted in people crowding the very top of the mountain and then, when they couldn't find another way down, starting to return the way they had come. Because the final section is quite steep and narrow this resulted in a gridlock at the summit. Even so, everyone was pretty relaxed about the situation except one guy who started doing his nut.
We have no idea if he was being blocked from making his way to the top by people coming down or if he was frustrated in his efforts to descend
by people coming up?? Anyhow pretty much everyone thought that he was a complete tool. A site guide arrived and started trying to sort things out, but the crazy guy started yelling at him. People were trying to tell him to pull his head in and let the guide sort things out, but he wasn't having any of it. Eventually the guide made his way to the summit and started helping people across a rock chasm and pointing our the correct way to make the descent. Hmmn, they really need to make sure the guide is the first to the summit or have an extra couple of arrows at the top to direct people to the down route!
Once everyone was set on the correct route the descent became much more orderly. Thank goodness!! As with our ascent, we decided that slow and steady would be the best way to get our butts back down the mountain without incident. As we descended we had the path pretty much to ourselves. There were only a handful of walkers descending more quickly than us and we were happy to let them overtake us. We passed a couple of older couples (even
older than us!) who were still on the ascent. We offered words of encouragement as we passed them on our way down. With a cloud free morning it was not difficult to take frequent rest stops just to admire the perfect view that we had down over the ruins of Machu Picchu ... and take lots of photos, of course!
At 9.55am we were signing ourselves off the mountain. Phew, we just made it before they started admitting the walkers with a 10.00-11.00am entry time. If we could have ordered the weather for today we could not have requested anything better than the day we had. Absolutely perfect and both very pleased with ourselves for attempting the Huayna Picchu climb and nailing it.
We had thought that we might explore parts of the site further in the better weather but, with the morning getting away from us (and our energy flagging!!), we thought that it would be more sensible to catch the bus back down the mountain. Besides we had been set a challenge to take a better photograph of a hummingbird in the Inkaterra's gardens than Leo managed to take in 2014!!
Damn, we arrived back
at the hotel to discover that they were pressure hosing the terrace where the hummingbird feeders are located. Hmmn, that's probably not all that conducive to taking a great photo of a hummingbird. Undeterred we sat for a while on the steps down to the terrace. We changed our camera settings to maximise our chances of taking a decent hummingbird photograph (For the photographically minded: TV 1/1000th of a second, AI Servo and high speed continuous shooting to try to catch a fast moving bird and changed to multiple focus spots rather than a single focal point). Then we crossed our fingers and hoped that the hummingbirds might come to the bananas in the trees at the edge of the terrace even if they were unlikely to approach the feeder down on the terrace. A couple of other blue-ish birds came to feed and a butterfly, but no hummingbirds.
After half an hour with no action I told Bernie that I was going to poke around the gardens a bit to see if there were any flowering plants that might attract the hummingbirds. As I walked up into the gardens I noticed that there were cow and cross charms
on the roofs of the units. I changed my camera settings to photograph those and then changed them back again ... except I may have forgotten the multiple focus points setting.
I took a photo of a particularly juicy looking flower and decided it might be a good candidate for some hummingbird action so staked it out. Woo hoo, the first hummingbird caught me a bit unaware but I reckon I managed a pretty good shot of the second one that flitted by. They are so quick!
As we climbed Huayna Picchu we kept fantasising about having pizza for lunch at the restaurant closest to the Inkaterra - we were sure we had earned it! Unfortunately the closest pizza place was closed, but we found another pizza place just along the street. We ordered our pizza at 12.15pm on the assurance that it would be ready in 15 minutes. Carol was walking past so came in to join us for a Coke. Our pizza was delivered to our table at about 12.35pm and we were due to meet Gina in the foyer at the Inkaterra at 12.45pm. Needless to say the pizza was scoffed in record time with
Carol being convinced that she needed to help out by eating some for us! Phew, we made it back to the hotel by about 12.47pm.
We trailed behind Gina back to the train station. As we walked past the restaurant where we had lunched the girl spotted Bernie and rushed out to say that we had been short charged. Because someone else brought Carol her Coke the two tabs had not been added together so the restaurant was short about 10S/. (AUS$4.00). We scraped together the money owed and scampered after the rest of the group after this hold up.
The train trip back to Ollantaytambo included a snack consisting of a piece of pie made with a local fruit that may have been somewhat like a loquat? The snack service was followed by a fashion parade featuring Alpaca garments made by a company that has partnered up with Peru Rail to promote their wares. Some of the garments were very striking and most of the ladies wear featured multiple fashion ways. Very tempting, but we all managed to keep our solis in our pockets.
At Ollantaytambo we were met by Breytzi and Gregorio for our return
by bus to Cuzco. We drove back by a different route from Tuesday and were able to stop along the way for a panoramic view of the mountains and the glacier and see some more Incan ruins on a nearby hillside.
Breytzi and Gregorio dropped us on the outskirts of Cuzco and we transferred to mini busses that were able to drop us right to the door of the Novatel Hotel. Our rooms were reallocated/reassigned. Some of the group were in the same room, some of us were in different rooms. Bernie and I were downgraded to a lower floor on our return to the Novatel, but the room was almost exactly the same.
The girls fancied Chinese food for dinner and invited anyone else who was interested to meet them in the foyer. We headed down at the appointed time and the girls assured everyone that they knew where to go because they had seen the Chinese restaurant earlier in the week. Out the door, turn left, take the first right and there we were ... at a nightclub! Um, maybe it's the second right? Nope. We continued around in a big blockie and, just when we were about to give up and settle for something else for dinner, the Peruvian Chinese restaurant was right in front of us.
That was when Meredith, Bernie and I discovered that no-one had eaten at the Chinese restaurant earlier in the week to vet it out. Hmmn, not feeling very hungry, we bailed out and decided to go to Sara which had been sampled by John and Carol and given the thumbs up. When we walked in Gabriel and Yin were tucking into some food that looked delicious. We decided to order Yin's appetiser, but share it between the three of us and then order more if we felt like it. After the appetiser we all felt like we had had enough - the high altitude really slows your digestion down and takes the edge right off your appetite!!
Steps 22,093 (16.22km)
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Tot: 0.125s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0498s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
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Caroline Brunner
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Fabulous shot.
That's a great photo Tracey. What a fantabulous day! Surely the Gods of the Inca's were smiling on you both.