Day 4 Machu Picchu - Peter's 81st

Today was the Machu Picchu Day. At 5:00am (ughhhhh) we were out the door with a box lunch. Yes - we had to remind ourselves this was not a pleasure trip but an adventure.

A bus took us to Ollantaytambo market, which I found confusing as I couldn’t see the trains. Then the music started and costumed dancers marched us down to the train. Not touristy at all, right ???? In the train, again we were « entertained » with a Peruvian love story acted out. OK enough already. . . . .

From there it was another bus up to the site - YIKES, there was a long queue winding along. Seems about 4,000 tourists pass through every day - fortunately they have it down to a science so it works relatively well . Only 10 / guide, and groups go to different sites. We hit 3 sites - agriculture, religion & industry. Our guide said just recently they'd reduced the size of the groups from 20 to 10. 20 would have been ridiculous as the steps are steep and uneven with few guard rails. One swing of a back pack could send someone flying , . . .

Must say, the first view of MP was incredible. It’s hard to imagine all this being created in the 14th century with limited tools and no scientific instruments or written language. We kept hearing about Hiram Bingham, a Yale University Prof who claimed to have discovered MP in 1911. He put pics in National Geographic magazine and they went "viral" - well the equivalent of that way back then. Other researchers propose that an earlier explorer, Augustin Lizárranga, may have come across the ruins before him.

I’d actually read Bingham's book Lost City of the Incas before coming - well can't say read - let's say skimmed. His day to day diary got too boring to me. Perhaps I'll try again now that I've been here.

MP was not the Inca capitol, Cuzco was. Through our various guides we’ve heard different things: MP was the rec centre for the wealthy, a place to store food like potatoes, a trading centre - coca leaves for salt.

Coca leaves are « gold » in Peru - even now. True they have health benefits, but also small amounts of cocaine that act as stimulants and enable people to work longer & harder. For the Incas the problem was that these leaves were only grown in the jungle to the north. The Incas didn’t want to go there, so they had to entice the people to come to MP. Once there, they would trade coca leaves for salt, which the people from the jungle desperately want to preserve food.

We topped off the day of celebrating Peter's 81st B-day. A great way to do it - food was 5 * and the company couldn't have been better.Read more