Machu Picchu
We were up early on the 4th day to go to Machu
Picchu as our tickets allowed entry between 6am and 12pm. We bottled it and
opted to take the bus up there, while most of the rest of our group trekked the
2000-odd steps up. We were climbing Huayna Picchu so we needed to conserve our
energy – that was our excuse anyway. The 20-minute bus ride was $12 each
one-way and we advised to start queuing at 4am, even though the bus didn’t
leave until 5.30am. We were on the first bus, but there was a constant flow of
buses, and I’m sure those at the end of the massive line didn’t have to wait
too long to get on a bus.
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| Machu Picchu morning mist |
When we arrived, we met up with the rest of our exhausted
group and our guide (who had gone on the bus with us) and we were taken round
the awesome site for a couple of hours. The cloud over the main area was pretty
thick when we got there and we all had our fingers crossed that it would clear.
Luckily it did, but it’s not uncommon for visitors to get cloud all day. By
around 7.30am the cloud had lifted. It was actually great to get some cloud
because it added to the mystique and magic of it.
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| Machu Picchu |
Machu Picchu is the most famous Incan city, built in the 15th
century and which sits almost 2,500m above sea level.
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| Sun Temple |
Machu Picchu means ‘old mountain’ in the Quechuan language.
The Quechuan
are the people that existed in the time of the Incas and many Peruvian people
are descended from this culture and still speak their original language – in
fact the language is again being taught in schools.
Much of the town has the same architecture as other Incan
sites – the use of large pieces of granite cut into different shapes and sizes which
probably fit together using a technique similar to tongue and groove, where a
protrusion of one rock slots into a gap in another rock, like a jigsaw.
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| Amazing views |
The Incas tended not to use mortar to join the rocks and
their constructions have stood the test of time and lasted longer than many
colonial buildings that have suffered because of the earthquakes in Peru. When
they did use mortar, it was mainly a mix of clay and llama or alpaca hair to
strengthen it and reduce shrinkage. It was thought that they split rocks by
making holes in them, inserting wood which would then be made wet, causing the
wood to expand and breaking the rock. All walls were built with an incline to
protect against earthquakes – something the Spanish failed to incorporate. Many
of the engineering techniques used by the Incas were lost when their
civilisation was wiped out because nothing written down or drawn has been
discovered.
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| Machu Picchu |
The whole site is extremely well preserved, due to the Incas
excellent architectural and engineering capabilities but also because of its
hidden location in the mountains, so the Spanish conquerors failed to find it
and destroy it.
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| Machu Picchu |
At about 8.30am we were advised by our guide to head across
to the entrance to Huayna Picchu, and the rest of the group continued to
explore Machu Picchu. In fact, we didn’t need to get there that early at all,
especially as there were only going to be 200 of us going in at different times
between 10 and 11am. We weren’t too worried, we had purposely booked to stay
over another night in town so we didn’t need to rush to get the bus back to
Cusco that afternoon, and we had plenty of time to explore Machu Picchu a bit
more after we had conquered the mountain.
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| View from Huayna Picchu |
The trek up was fabulous and I am really pleased we decided
to do it, despite my misgivings, having read about the infamous death
stairs at the top. The climb took around an hour with several stops to take
pictures, rest and just gape at the incredible views.
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| Death stairs |
It was almost as if
someone had used CGI. Some parts of it were hard going, steep and dizzying, but
this added to the experience and the view from the top was well worth it. The
death stairs in particular were pretty steep and scary. At the top and on the
way back down there was an extremely narrow cave which we had to crawl through.
I thought it was a natural rock formation but apparently it was designed by the
Incas to put off invaders.
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| View from Huayna Picchu of Machu Picchu |
After we had trekked back down, we were directed out of the
entire site by the security staff and we had no option but to leave, even
though we tried to walk back into the main part of Machu Picchu. We were assured by the staff that we would be
able to get back in, and both of our guides had previously told us that our
tickets would allow 2 entries into the site, bearing in mind that the toilets
and restaurants were outside.
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| View from top of Huayna Picchu |
We were at the bottom of the mountain by 11.45am and it took
us about 20 minutes to leave the site. Outside, we spotted one of our group who
had also climbed the mountain and we grabbed some food with him, all of us
deciding we wanted to go back into Machu Picchu as we’d had our time cut short
in the morning.
Hey ho, whaddya know, they wouldn’t let us back in. Our
ticket was only valid for entry between 6am and 12pm, and this didn’t mean for
first entry as any normal person would assume, but it also meant that if we
wanted to go to the toilet or get some food, we had to do that before 12pm too.
Bearing in mind we had completed the mountain climb by
11.45am and it took 20 minutes to leave the whole site, then we had to queue up
to get back in, there was no way we would have made it back before 12pm. We
were bemused as to why we had to leave the whole site too, as it was perfectly
possible to have walked back to Machu Picchu if the guards weren’t there. We
weren’t the only ones affected – there were 7 or 8 of us complaining but we were
told that we the only way we were getting back in was if we coughed up another
$25 for a new ticket. One massive con and really disappointing for a once in a
lifetime experience.
We decided we had enough energy left to trek back down to
the town and how pleased was I that we’d got the bus up that morning because
those steps down were never-ending. I think I would have given up if I’d
trekked up them at 4am that morning.
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| Railway back to Hidroelectrica |
We spent a quiet evening in Aguas Calientes, until we were
rudely awakened at 3am by the couple in the room below us playing music and
chatting at the top of their voices with their windows wide open. I got up to
ask them to quieten down and Baby D told me to be polite. After knocking on the
door a couple of times with no reply, I heard a booming voice from my room yell
‘KEEP THE F*@£ING NOISE DOWN!’ Within a millisecond there was perfect silence
and my husband barged past me to bang on the door, his patience spent after
less than a minute of telling me to be polite.
In the morning we had a 12km walk along the train tracks
back the way we came, to a town called Hidroelectrica which was where we were
to be picked up and transported in a mini-van of doom back to Cusco. On our
walk to the town, we stopped at a butterfly
house, and the botanical gardens; Los
Jardines de Mandor, to see the waterfalls.
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| Waterfall in botanical garden |
There are also hot springs in
the town of Aguas Calientes (the name means hot water) but we gave them a miss.
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| Butterfly |
Cusco
The bus journey back to Cusco was horrific – I would
recommend Valium for this ride. The driver nearly drove over the side of the
mountain on several occasions and he sped through thick cloud with no
visibility, overtaking on blind corners like a crazy fool. At least we got back
quickly and alive.
The next day we found the free walking
tour HURRAH! We met at 10.30am in the Plaza
Mayor and were taken round the city. This tour is probably worth doing
before seeing any other sites (as are most of the city tours we’ve done)
because we had already learned a lot about Cusco, its heritage and history and
its sights but nevertheless, it was a great tour and we learned about some
lesser known places, some of the better value shops and places to eat,
including Pampa
de Castillo and San
Pedro market (we were warned about getting sick in San Pedro market
though).
We learned that the city’s original name was Cosqo, but the
Spaniards changed it slightly to Cusco when they arrived in 1534, to make it
sound more Spanish. They completely ransacked the original city and built 2m on
top of it and over 2 rivers which are now used as sewers. We learned that the
Incas were kings and the normal people were the Quechuan. When the Spanish
came, two Inca
brothers, Atahualpa and Huascar were fighting among themselves and the
Spanish capitalised on this by killing Huascar And befriending Atahualpa, who
they then betrayed and also killed.
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| Cusco ladies |
In the time of the Incas when there were up to 30,000 people
living in the city, human sacrifice was common, particularly of beautiful
teenage girls, who were seen as pure. Sacrifice is still practised today,
albeit very rarely, but instead of humans, llamas are used. In the time of the
Incas, black llamas and alpacas were favoured for sacrifice because they were
also seen as purest – as worshippers of nature, black would have been the
purest colour having come before the creation of the world and light.
The flag of the city represents all the colours of the
rainbow, the rainbow representing another link between heaven and Earth. We
discovered that Pacha Mama means Mother Earth and Quechuan people to this day
pour the first bit of a new drink into the earth as an offering to her.
All over the city are small ornamental bulls which can
usually be found inside or on the roofs of houses. These bulls represent
protection and strength and would traditionally have been a pair of llamas. In
order to placate the Spanish, the native people adopted the bull, so that they
weren’t accused of devil-worship.
Over the next couple of days in Cusco we visited the Museo
Quechua (free) and we got a great tour from the staff.
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| Pachacuteq |
We walked down to the Pachacuteq
Monument – included as part of the tourist ticket – which is a tower on top
of which sits an enormous bronze statue of Pachacuteq (11.5m), one of the most
important Inca leaders who facilitated the construction of 50 towns (including
Machu Picchu) in a 40 year period. It is possible to climb the tower; each
floor describing the culture of the Incas and the life of Pachacuteq. There is
a fantastic view of the city from the top, standing next to the imposing bronze
figure of the main man.
We also went to:
- Qorikancha
Site Museum, included with the tourist ticket. This is a small museum whose
highlight was three mummies found at the site of Sacsyhuaman and distorted
skulls which show the elevated social status of the person.
- A free cultural area called Direccion
Desconcentrada de Cultura de Cusco, an excavated site where we saw more
Inca ruins and another skeleton.
- The Convent
and Museum of Santa Catalina where we learned about the life and work of
the nuns there and listened to their choir practice which was mesmerising.
-
San
Blas area of the city for shopping.
- The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Virgin,
or Cusco
Cathedral on the main square, which is free entry before 8am each morning,
but long trousers are a must – Baby D wasn’t allowed in because he had shorts
on.
- La
Compania de Jesus Church, adjacent to the cathedral on the main square.
- The local markets at the end of the Avenida El
Sol to pick up some bargains.
There are loads of other places to visit which we didn’t get
round to, such as the San
Blas Temple, Casa
Concha Museum, the Inka
Museum (which didn’t have change so we couldn’t go in) and the Santo
Domingo Monastery or Qorikancha.
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| Cusco cathedral |
That evening, before meeting up with some of our Machu
Picchu tour group, we managed to lose a pub quiz in a place called Indigo,
which sold pretty decent Thai curries, but we won a beer for best name (‘That’s
what she said’) and a free meal at a very good restaurant called Marcelo
Batata which served possibly the best Piscos in Peru, and the contemporary
take on Peruvian food was mouth-wateringly good. Our night out didn’t finish
until 3am and got pretty messy. Our friends’ hostel
had a lively pub attached to it and we ended up in a nightclub somewhere. We
did nothing the next day apart from sleep.
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| La compania de Jesus church |
On our last day in Cusco we used our tourist ticket to go on
a tour of the Sacred
Valley, outside of the city, which included the small town of Chinchero
near Cusco where there is a beautiful church completely decorated with fresco
paintings inside.
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| Chinchero |
Then we went onto Moray,
an impressive place about 3,500m above sea level, which was used by the Incas
for testing agricultural methods because the site, believed to have been formed
by a meteor, created a microclimate to allow diverse growing techniques.
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| Moray |
After that we drove to the salt ponds in the village of Mara
where salt is still mined.
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| Mara salt ponds |
Next stop was Ollantaytambo
to see another Inca town, which was the royal estate of Pachacuteq and the last
bastion destroyed by the Spanish before they would have reached Machu Picchu.
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| Ollantaytambo |
The
mountain in front of the town was used as a sundial – during the solstices the
sun would appear at either side of the mountain and the sun temple was built to
face it.
Carved into the mountain is the silhouette of a face of Wiracocha,
who Incas believed was the creator of everything. This was apparently man-made
but the jury’s out on that.
Finally, we headed to Pisac,
another interesting Inca town where you can see several holes in the face of
the mountain, which was actually a cemetery and where a large number of
mummified bodies were discovered.
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| Pisac |
We learned that the Incas forced men between
20 and 45 years old into working the fields, and if they refused they were
killed. The Peruvian people are very vocal about how kind and gentle the Incas
were, which may not always have been the case.
On our final night in Peru I met up with a work colleague
who happened to be in town, and we visited the two other best places for Pisco,
the Republica
de Pisco, and the Museo
de Pisco.
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| Pisco Sour |
Baby D who had stayed in for an early night, and our hostel owner
were waiting up for me because there was no key for the door – every time we
went out we had to ring the doorbell and wake up the owners – and there was a
power cut that night, so the doorbell didn’t work. Whoops. I think he was glad
to see the back of us.
Back to Lima for our last few hours in Peru, before heading
to the last country on our world tour, the good old US of A, and a few days in
Las Vegas. Three weeks till home time!
#machupicchu #huaynapicchu #pisco #chinchero #pisac #ollantaytambo #mara #moray #cusco
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