30.06 - Day 11 - Machu Picchu, PER

Machu Picchu, Peru

Wednesday 30th June 2010

The alarm gets earlier and earlier. Packed up and munching on a jam roll at 5am when Freddy comes bouncing in. Walk to join bus queue with all the other tourists intent on an early start. After a wait and a 25 minute bus ride we’re at the entrance gate to Machu Picchu at 6:15.

Freddy points at the route all the tourists take and promptly takes us the other way. We settle on a small terrace where for over an hour we pepper Freddy with questions on a topic he’s clearly animated about. Looking around in the mist we can see levels of terraces similar to Ollantaytambo. 

As the mist continually rises and falls more aspects are uncovered and re-hidden; the size of terraces each five/six feet tall and about 10 feet deep, a mass of shells of stone buildings. 

We gain a much more thorough how and why of Machu Picchu – used for approximately 300-350 Inca nobility, built along a known tectonic plate fault line (marked by a terrace running through the site), earthquake proof, took 70-100 years to build, never officially “found” by the Spanish Conquistadors (though with the searching they undertook, maybe it was found but kept secret).

We proceed on a one and a half hour tour – Freddy showing us the various temples, altars, homes for the high priests, the quarry at the back from where all the stone came, the fountains, the intricate and immaculate stone work – especially for the tomb of the king and the observatory.

After this Freddy leaves us in a tearful farewell (mostly on Krish’s part). Krish and I are left to our own devices, climbing up on high to simply sit and stare and take in all the splendour. Photos seen previously just don’t do it justice – for one the setting; on a steep sided mountain, you can see down into the river valleys on either side, and then further tree covered sharply inclined mountains all around. 

The size of the site is greater than we expected which adds to the sense of awe when viewed from up on high – it also means that despite there being plentiful tourists you are quite often on your own – which made it feasible to imagine how Hiriam Bingham felt 99 years ago when he first “discovered” it for Westerners. 

You can almost picture the Incas some 600-700 years ago going about their business. And it was an enterprise for them – testing agricultural practices, observing the sun and moon, offering sacrifices (only rarely humans we believe).

After six hours at Machu Picchu (which incidentally means Old Mountains and was simply the name of the mountain overlooking what is now known as Machu Picchu) we catch the bus down to Aguas Calientes and pass the time until our train leaves at 17:30 lunching, internetting and taking advantage of Happy Hour – four cocktails for 18 Soles (£4.20).

Five hours of train and bus later we check into Walk on Inn in Cusco, safe in the knowledge that our bus tickets are booked for Cusco to Puno at 7:30 the next morning.