Part 5 of 5
We woke at 5am, well I should say Graham woke at 5am to the sound of the alarm in our room which I slept through courtesy of my ear plugs (the karaoke bar down the street was not quiet). We puttered around in our room, dressing, eating our snack and getting ready to go. The ladies were surprisingly quiet but since they had an alarm I thought nothing of it. After 15 or 20 minutes though I thought I should check on their progress since we didn’t to be late to Machu Picchu. Good thing I checked: they were still asleep. Turns out that Sandy’s phone needs a signal in order for the alarm to work, presumably it does not have the ability to keep time by itself!
Despite this momentary bit of excitement we were at the bus by 6am and entering into Machu Picchu itself by 6:30. The sun had yet to rise over the nearby mountains and the valleys were filled with mist turning the site into a ghostly open-air cathedral.
While he did so we marveled at it all, enjoying watching the mists swirl until suddenly the sun squinted through a tight pass on the other side of the valley, lifting the mist and revealing first Waynu Picchu and then the village of Machu Picchu. The word “Picchu” in Quechua means mountain by the way and Waynu and Machu translate to young and old respectively.
We walked through the gathering crowds, each with their guide, with Edwin explaining this or that as we passed. In some places we stopped and waited for the current group to finish and move on. For the most part this was very civilized. The only time this broke down was with a couple of large French groups. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky since there are a lot less tourists right now.
There is a definite cycle or path through MP that all the guides tended to follow, generally leading one clockwise through the main village, starting and ending at the growing terraces adjacent to the main entrance. The loop takes about 2 to 3 hours and takes you through or past the main temples, a boys school, a girls school (think Vestal Virgins) in tight proximity to the boys school (what were they thinking?) and a variety of plazas.
With his tour over, Edwin had to hurry back into Aguas Calientes to try again to get a train ticket back to Cusco, or to be more accurate Km 82 which is as far as the train currently goes. Km 0 is Cusco and Aguas Calientes is Km 109 or so. You take a bus or a taxi from Km 82 to Km 0.
This brings up a sore point for us in our group. According to Edwin, our friends in Lima who had recommended United Mice to us and witnessed by us there is a segregation rule in effect. All Peruvians must travel in the Peruvian-only train cars and all foreign tourists must travel in the foreigners train cars. There appears to be limited space for the locals and no mingling is allowed. Partly this was explained away as a result of the HUGE disparity in ticket prices but in reality this is akin to African Americans being forced to sit at the back of the bus. It was disgusting to see and to be forced to be a part of. Edwin seemed resigned to it sad to say.
We agreed to meet back in AC at 2pm for lunch and then hied ourselves off to the guardhouse which overlooks the village of MP and is the final stop on the way down from the Sun Gate. The view from here is quite stellar, just high enough to see the whole village and note that it is indeed laid out in the shape of a condor. The important Inka towns/villages are laid out to represent one of the pantheon of important animals in Inka mythology/cosmology.
We then hiked up to the Sun Gate, the final point along what is now called the Classic Inka Trail which starts down at Km 82 and winds up and over the mountains until it ends at Machu Picchu. The hike is a minor lung buster but many do it of all ages and fitness levels and reward of the view is worth it.
We headed back down in the company of a group of sexagenarian Aussies who were very amusing, Darcie and Sandy trailing along with a couple of the slower ones of that group. Graham and I took up post in the shade at the bottom to await the ladies. It was taking an awful long time and they weren’t that far behind. Turns out a couple of the tourist llamas had gotten amorous and had blocked the path for a midday quickie much to everyone’s amusement.
Our lunch with Edwin was stupid expensive just like everything in Aguas Calientes and while not bad was far from good. It is a shame that AG has to be this way but the fleecing of tourists is a game played the world over, lessons the experience of MP. We had to wait until 9:45pm for our train since that is the cheapest and thus the only train you are going to get with a tour company unless you pay extra (assuming they make even that option available). This meant we had 5 hours to kill in money sucking AG. We spent more than several hours at the hot springs which were crowded and murky but something to do that was actually cheap. They also have a funky-cool bar which is not quite as over-priced as the in-town bars and restaurants.
The train ride when it happened was uneventful for the most part other than for one woman who got on drunk and got even drunker while on the train. Drunk actually is an understatement, she was hammered. We arrived at Km 82 at 11pm or so and hopped into our waiting taxi who took us post-haste back to Cusco. We overtook any and every car that we came across, it was quite a performance. We got back into Cusco at 1pm or so to the wonderful luxury of Rumi Punku (highly recommend this place if you are going to Cusco) and thus ended our five day, 70km of walking, trek to Machu Pichu.
We enjoyed it immensely, met a wonderful new friend (Sandy), saw amazing views, challenged ourselves both in climbing to new heights and in distance, lived with the chickens and ate way too many carbs and not enough protein, saw five fantastic sunrises and actually managed to get to Machu Picchu.
Fabulous Blog! Thanks for all the gory details.
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