Machu Picchu

We’ve just returned from our latest adventure – a 4-day trip to Machu Picchu. The last 4 days have been really busy and non-stop excitement. Before I get into the details of our adventure, I think it would be best to explain just what Machu Picchu is and a bit of the history behind it.

According to what we’ve learned from the guides, Machu Picchu, also known as “The Lost City of the Incas”, was built by the Incans in and around the 15th century. They continued building this city for over 130 years. The city was meant as a refuge for the Incans. Most of them lived in the nearby cities (such as Cusco), but they travelled there for schools, important events, and for holidays. In around 1570 or so, the Spaniards started arriving in Peru. The Spaniards started to invade the culture of the Incans so the Incans decided to leave Machu Picchu in order to hide it from the Spaniards. They fled the city and went to other nearby villages destroying the access routes (the famous “Inca Trail”) so that the Spaniards wouldn’t find it. They were successful, and for hundreds of years the city lay hidden and almost forgotten from memory. In 1911, Hiram Bingham, an American explorer was in the area when he ran into some locals who mentioned to him that they knew about some ruins that existed on the top of one of the nearby mountains. He checked it out and discovered the city and made it well-known internationally. For the first few years the city was raided of almost all of its artifacts and it was treated poorly, but in 1950, the Peruvian government stepped in and restored a lot of it and put in a large number of restrictions in order to preserve the historical city. Today Machu Picchu is one of the most famous tourist destinations in all of South America. For many, it is the reason to visit Peru. Thousands of visitors come every day to explore it’s wonders. The city is extremely picturesque and exciting to explore. Adding to its wonder is it’s remote location. For years the only way to get to it was the famous “Inca Trail”, which itself was also restored. It is a good 3 or 4 day walk through some beautiful scenery to arrive at Machu Picchu. In recent years, they’ve also added a train service for the lazier travellers that brings you to the base of the mountain within a few hours of the city of Cusco. The Inca Trail remains the most popular way to get to Machu Picchu, however unfortunately it’s popularity has also become it’s downfall. Many years of 100’s of hikers every day have taken their toll on the trail and it was starting to lose it’s wonder. The government stepped in an initiated a cleanup and restoration project and it is now much better. They have also added restrictions so that only 500 people a day are allowed on the trail. This means that you need to book months in advance in order to hike the trail.

We had no idea when we were going to arrive in Peru, so we did not book anything ahead of time. When we arrive here in Cusco, we discovered that the trail was booked up until August. Thankfully, the restrictions on the trail has forced the creation of all kinds of alternative trails. We had the option of hiking many of these alternatives, and we eventually decided on the trip named “The Inca Jungle Tour to Machu Picchu”. This looked like the best option for us and we were correct. It was great.

On Monday morning we woke up early to take a 3 hour bus ride to start our trip. On the bus we met the other members of our group. We had two guys from England, two from Israel, one from Germany, and us. They were all pretty nice guys and we got to know them pretty well by the end of the trip. Joh was the only girl in our group which was not so nice for her, but she ended up having a great time and she had no problems keeping up to everyone through all our activities. Also, her sore foot was never really a problem, and for a lot of the trip she was out in front setting the pace.

We finished our initial bus ride on the top of a nearby mountain. The tour company provided mountain bikes for us, and we started our trip by descending over 3000 vertical meters on a 50km road down the mountain. The ride started out at an extremely high altitude, so the temperature was around zero and we were in the middle of a cloud, so we were wet and freezing cold. The first few kilometers were excruciatingly cold, but with every meter of altitude that we lost, it became warmer and warmer. By the time we were 10km into the decent the weather had become much better and we could really start to enjoy ourselves. The biking was very easy, as we were constantly going downhill, but it was wet, so if we went too quickly there was the danger of slipping and falling off the side of the road, hundreds of meters to the valley below, so we took it easy. Eventually we made it down to the bottom where the climate was much different. We were now in the jungle. We biked along the muddy, bumpy jungle road for an hour or so and when were exhausted we finally made it to our lunch stop. All of us were covered in mud and soaking wet so we were really glad to rest for a while. We stopped in a small town where we were to spend the night.

We had the option to do some rafting on the river that afternoon/evening, but our whole group was exhausted and in need of some dry, clean clothes and a rest so we decided to forgo that. Joh had a nice, well-deserved nap in the lodge, and I joined in on a game of soccer with the other travellers and some locals. We had a great time, although my soccer skills were definitely lacking compared to all the Europeans and locals that had grown up playing soccer daily. If only they could have set up some ice hockey or something, then I might have had a chance.

We awoke early the next morning for our trek. The day was spent trekking over 9 hours through the jungle and along some mountain roads. We saw some amazing scenery and walked on parts of the original Inca Trail (a section outside of the official trail leading to Machu Picchu). Parts of the trail were extremely difficult – quite steep and muddy, and it was very hot and humid. We walked through both jungle and mountain terrain so we got to see quite a variety of vegetation and landscapes. By the end of the day we were extremely tired and to be honest - quite sick of walking.

The next day, we had the option to go to a local zip line. We jumped at that opportunity, and we had a great time. We got to slide down 6 different lines, cris-crossing the valleys. We were a little hesitant on the first, but after one or two lines you ignore your nerves and go across with no hands and really enjoy the sensation. Great views too. I managed to take a video of one of the rides, so we’ll try get that posted here on the blog as soon as possible.

After the zip lines we had a short bus ride and then another trek. The trek was pretty simple that day as we just followed some train tracks for a few hours towards the city of Aguas Calientes, which is the small tourist town at the bottom of Machu Picchu mountain. Along the way we were treated to a few views of Machu Picchu from afar, so it really got us excited about the next day when we could see it up close. It was a long walk and we were still pretty tired from the previous day’s trek, but eventually we made it into town. After settling into our hostel there, we explored the town and went swimming in the local hot springs. It felt great to relax in the hot water after all the walking we had done in the last few days. That night we had a big dinner and made plans for our day in Machu Picchu.

One of the popular hikes around Machu Picchu is the climb up to the top of Wayna Picchu, which is a big cliff that is right beside Machu Picchu. The climb up and the view from the top is supposed to be amazing. Unfortunately, only 400 people a day are permitted to climb up the Wanya Picchu, and it is first come, first served. In order to be one of those 400, you need to arrive first thing in the morning. So every morning, there is a big race to try and get to Machu Picchu first to get the permit to climb Wayna Picchu. There are basically two ways to get there: by bus or by walking up the mountain. The first bus leaves at 5:30 and subsequent ones leave every 5 minutes. The gates to climb up the mountain by foot open at 5:00. So either you need to run up the mountain as fast as you can to beat the buses, or get on one of the first buses. In theory, both the runners and the buses should arrive at Machu Picchu at approximately 6:00. We were in no condition to attempt to run up a mountain, so we opted to get up early to try get on one of the first buses. Our guide recommended that we get to the bus stop at around 3:45 in order to guarantee your spot. We woke up the next morning at 3:15 and we were at the bus stop by 3:30. There were already around 30 or 40 people in line so we figured our chances were decent. Unfortunately, those 30 or 40 people over the next two hours swelled to about 100, as people were saving spots for others and there were a few people that managed to cut in front. We ended up on the 3rd bus, and we were still optimistic that we’d be able to get the permit. When we got to the top of the mountain, there was a huge crowd of people. It looked like there were probably around 400 so we were still hopeful. As we moved up in the queue, we got more nervous and eventually one of the guys from our own group grabbed the last permit for himself. He was around 10 to 20 people in front of us in line. We were disappointed, and a little pissed off that we had woken up at 3:15 for nothing, but we put the smiles back on and remembered where we were and resolved ourselves to enjoy the day anyways.

When we entered Machu Picchu it was quite an amazing site. We had seen countless photographs of the place before, but to see it in person is absolutely awe-inspiring. Surrounded by ruins and huge scenic cliffs, it seemed like we were in another world. Our tour included a two-hour guided tour of the city, so we took that and we learned a lot about the history of the place, as well as the architectural methods used. It was pretty amazing. The first few hours were pretty cloudy, so it was difficult to get some great photos, but every once in a while the clouds would move around just enough so that we could get some great shots. After the tour we explored the ruins by ourselves and got a chance to get some really stunning photos. The best view we got was from the path up to the sun gate which is a kilometer or so up the other side of the mountain. From there we had some great views of the whole city and Wayna Picchu. I think the views we got from there were just as good as the ones we would have gotten from climbing up Wayna Picchu, so I have no regrets that we couldn’t go up there. After exploring for about 5 or 6 hours we had had enough. Getting up really early that morning started to take its toll, so we took the bus back down into town and enjoyed a beer and a really badly cooked pizza. We still had a few hours so we spent some time searching the town for a souvenir spoon for my mom (success finally! – they’re hard to find in Peru) and had another meal (trekking and touring makes you really hungry) and then caught the train/bus combo back to Cusco. We arrived back here at around 11pm, and fell into our beds exhausted.

When we woke up this morning we were treated to the most wretched stench ever. The clothes and shoes that we had worn for 4 days in a row were absolutely foul. If you’ve ever hiked for 4 days in the same pair of socks though muddy trails, while constantly sweating you might have some idea as to what that smelled like. I really pity the laundry lady at our hostel.

It was great to have a hot shower and a clean change of clothes. We had a nice breakfast this morning and relaxed in a café while we got caught up on emails and all that. We’ll spend the weekend here in Cusco taking it easy and then we leave on Monday to fly to the north-western region of Peru. There we hope to spend some time living in a beach town (probably Mancora) for a month or so. We plan to learn to surf and to spend some time working on some non-travel-related goals for a while. These last few weeks we’ve seen and done quite a few things so it will be good to focus on something else for a while. We’re really looking forward to it.

Our hostel here in Cusco has Wi-Fi, but it is very slow. We will try post our pictures and videos from our tour soon, but it is likely that it will take a few days to get all the photos uploaded. We’ve got a lot of them, so please be patient. I’m sure Joh will have them ready within the next few days.