Machu Picchu

After a short train ride from Ollantaytambo accompanied by classic Peruvian music that gets stuck in your head all day, we arrived in Aguas Caliente. At the bottom of the hill it is the last gateway town before Machu Picchu. This town was built when Machu Picchu became a major tourist destinations in the 50's. You'd think that it would be the perfect little tourist town, well no. This town has no charm and the fact that everything is made for tourists makes it a bit sad. A good example is the exit of the train station, it is through a little gate that leads right into the centre of a maze of craft Market stalls. Not really what you want with backpacks! We were however warned and were expecting this atmosphere so we accepted it and were grateful to have spent the previous night at quaint Ollantaytambo.

Now, the best thing about Aguas Caliente is that we're almost at Machu Picchu! Another 30min bus ride up the hill and here we are, at the main entrance! Of course we are not alone, but again we expected that and enjoyed the fact that it was a sunny afternoon and that it was a lot warmer than we had imagined! We hired a guide for our walk to learn about the site and its history. Good decision as we would have probably got lost within the first ten minutes.

All the secrets behind Machu Picchu haven't yet been revelead. This unfinished town was never found by the Spanish and was only known to the locals. It was 're-discovered' in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American professor who was looking for another Inca town, but happened to stumble upon this one. At the time of this 're-discovery' only one family of farmers were living there and the site was very overgrown. Since then, a lot of cleaning up has been done and research to understand what this site was constructed for. From what our guide told us, it was never finished but was planned, as a retreat for Inca Kings. So what we see today is a complex with an agricultural site, places where the workers were living and also the beginnings of a palace and temples.

We start our visit with the agricultural site and its impressive number of terraces. This is a rocky mountain so they had to somehow build up the terrace walls then fill them up with some sand and earth brought up from the. Valley below in order to make things grow. Next, the living area, with two floored houses where a whole family of twelve would live and have space to store crops and food. And finally we arrived at the Sacred Palace where the sun temple was constructed the most important temple at the time. When the sun rises on the Summer solstice the sun shines right through the Sun gate on top of the mountain straight through a window and the shadow casts a perfect square right at the centre of the Temple. Next to it, they found a stone that aligns exactly with the 4 points of the compass, and another with the exact shape and angles of the Southern Cross constellation. Some of the many proofs that the Incas and other cultures before them used to love astronomy.
On our way out we saw a group of llamas grazing freely on site. Llamas are not the only living creatures here, there are also chinchillas, a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit who are so cute!

Amazing first day in Machu Picchu where we managed to enjoy the magic of this place despite the vast amount of tourists, its clearly a popular spot.Read more