5 days Trekking to Machu Picchu - Day 5Sep 27, 2009
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Our alarms had been set for a 3.30. Someone managed to wake us up at 3.10 by knocking on our door. We don’t know if it was the tour guide or the owner of the hotel who had been instructed to wake us up. Anyway, after about six hours sleep we were woken up in the middle of the night. The reason - to see one of the new seven wonders of the world - Machu Picchu.
We packed our day bags and put on loads of clothes - fleeces, sweaters, underpants, etc - in preparation for visiting the lost city. I had to spend some time wrapping up my blisters and putting on my feet. I was somewhat dreading walking up the mountain - just in case my feet might start hurting again. Iris wrapped herself very careful in many layers before we headed to the main square in Aguas Calientes. The square was two minutes walk away from our hostel.
The group was meant to meet at the square at four o’clock sharp. The climb up the mountain would take about one hour and a half and we should be there in plenty of time to see the sun rise over Machu Picchu. At four in the morning everyone in the group was there - except for the guides. They had overslept - maybe climbing the mountain and seeing Machu Picchu once a week had lost its charm and they just kept snoozing for a bit too long.
However, as we stood waiting in the square another tour guide walked past. He had led another group on the Saltankay trek at the same time as ours. He was very kind and let our group follow his and so we started walking towards Machu Picchu. It was pitch black outside and we were very happy that we had brought our torch as we walked through the darkness. We were following some sort of road for about 15-20 minutes until we got to a bridge passing over a river.
All of us were very surprised when all of a sudden our tour guides - Walter and Hermano - popped out of the darkness. They had indeed overslept, but somehow managed to walk/run quickly through the darkness and caught up with us at the foot of the mountain. I don’t understand how they managed to do this but they popped out of the darkness as if they had been there all along.
It was really now that the fun began. We started walking up the mountain. If I had understood or would have been able to guess how much hard work this would have been - I would never have done it! The trek up the mountain was the hardest aerobic exercise that I have ever done in my life. I think exactly the same goes for Iris. We pretty much ended up walking up stairs for about one hour and fifteen minutes before getting to the top. The total climb was circa 500 meters and we did this in little over one hour in complete darkness.
Iris and I were sweating like two little roasts in the oven as we were walking up the mounting. We got to the top at around 5.45 in the morning - about 15 minutes before they opened Machu Picchu to the public.
By the time we got to the top of the mountain our clothes were absolutely soaked. It looked as if we were wearing clothes taken straight out of the washing machine without being dried first. Our clothes didn’t smell particularly nice though. If we had been able to guess how hard work it had been - we would have jumped on the first available bus going up. Despite all of this - we were very happy and proud to have climbed up the mountain. It did feel like a great achievement, especially as we saw the lazy people arriving by bus…
We headed straight for the top of the mountain when we were allowed into Machu Picchu at six in the morning. The whole of Machu Picchu, the surrounding valleys and mountains were completely covered in mist. At first, we were a bit disappointed thinking that we had climbed the mountain in the early morning and wouldn’t be able to see a thing. However, it turned out to be a wonderful show that was about to unfold.
As the sun started shining, the mist started moving away and more and more of the valleys, mountains and Machu Picchu became visible. The views changed by the second. It was a complete miracle experiencing the changing views. We really loved it! It was completely amazing seeing how things changed and how the Lost City started to appear out of the mist.
Machu Picchu was indeed marvelous to look at. It is a really amazing sight. As you stand at the top of the mountain and look down at the city ruins and the terraces you are in complete amazement as to its beauty. It has to be experienced.
After the sun had risen, Walter started his tour of Machu Picchu. He was actually very knowledgeable on the topic and gave a very good guided tour.
He covered the story of how Machu Picchu was rediscovered by the Yale history professor Hiram Bingham in the 1910s. Hiram Bingham then made a great career out of his discovery by writing a great number of books, writing articles in National Geographic and excavating the city. Apparently, the Peruvian government isn’t too keen on Hiram Bingham as he brought back all of the artifacts he found at Machu Picchu back to Yale. The university was originally meant to send back half of the artifacts to Peru but they are now on permanent display at Yale. Hence, the guides are more or less forced to refer to Hiram Bingham as a thief.
Apparently, Machu Picchu was constructed in quite a short time span - probably 20-30 years - on the command of one of the most prominent Inca leaders of all time. It is still a bit unclear why Machu Picchu was built. One theory that Walter put forward was that it functioned as a sort of university city for the privileged citizens within the Inca empire. Following the demise of the Inca empire as the Spanish invaded, Machu Picchu was abandoned and largely forgotten until Hiram Bingham rediscovered the city. The Spanish never discovered Machu Picchu as they raided South America and this is the reason why the city is still (reasonably) intact.
At around nine in the morning the tour of Machu Picchu was finished. We had been shown the main sights and the temples. Walter had also explained some of the hocus-pocus rituals that the Incas had performed and how the sun had been a dominant force in their lives - solstices and the likes. They regularly sacrificed animals to the gods and in some extreme cases they had even offered humans (they had drugged them heavily before sacrificing them though).
We also learnt that although Machu Picchu was largely intact - parts of it had been reconstructed. Probably 60 percent of the city is original whereas 40 percent is reconstructed. And we also saw a few ‘modern-day’ Incas hard at work building the city…
After the tour had finished we walked around Machu Picchu for about three hours. We took a number of pictures and just sat around admiring the view. We somehow wonder what really makes Machu Picchu so amazing. It must partly be that it’s a fairly intact city. But we don’t think that Machu Picchu would have risen to its stardom hadn’t it been for its location perched high up on a mountain with wonderful surrounding views.
At about noon we started walking down the steps again to Aguas Calientes. We should probably have taken the bus but we were quite keen to walk down - just to ensure that we hadn’t been cheating on our Machu Picchu visit. The walk down took longer than the walk up - probably around two hours - as we were taking it easy.
As we got back to Aguas Calientes we sat down at a restaurant and had a Menu Touristico for lunch. Iris had some alpaca beef with fries and I had Spaghetti Bolognese (probably made of alpaca meat as well). For starter we had a soup. The tourist menus are typically very good value. As we were very tired from the early start we sat around at the restaurant for the better part of the afternoon. It also started raining which made us even less motivated to move around and look at the (miniscule) city.
Our train back to Ollantaytambo departed at 18.10 and we had to be at the train station at 17.40 to board the train. The train ride back was reasonably pleasant and most people on the train back were sleeping. We had after all been awake since half past three in the morning and climbed a very high mountain. The train got to Ollantaytambo after about one hour and we changed to a bus back to Cusco. Strangely enough the trains don’t go to Cusco - it would have been the natural thing…
The bus drove us back to Cusco (passing Chinchero) and we were back in Cusco at around half past nine in the evening. We were dropped off at the Plaza de Armas and we walked (with tired steps) to Priwa B&B where we had book a private room for the night. The room was very nice but fairly cold. It was really nice taking a shower after the morning’s aerobics pass - we smelt really badly and the hot water was nice.
As we hadn’t had any dinner we headed to Cusco’s McDonald’s (yes - they have one in even in Cusco!). The burger tasted nice and they had some interesting sauces we hadn’t seen anywhere before. I normally try to speak Spanish at every opportunity but I was so tired that I couldn’t be bothered to try and order in Spanish.
Our five day trek had come to an end. It had been an amazing trek. We had walked for four days and conquered a 4,650 meter high mountain - only 200 meters lower than Europe’s highest mountain (Mont Blanc). Iris had been out of breath and struggled to walk. I had developed horrible blisters that prevented me from walking. We had slept in tents and hadn’t showered for days. We had visited amazing hot springs and seen amazing views. Finally, we had visited the fantastic Machu Picchu. It was a great five days!!!
Marcus
