One heck of a view

Getting to Machu Picchu is a bit of a production in itself. We met Julian at 6am, and the line for the bus was already way, way up the street. There is a continual convoy of buses that climb the steep mountain side, connecting the tourists in Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu. Kim has stopped sitting by the window, due to the view. There are no guard rails, and the drop is straight down the mountainside. The bus ride takes approximately 40 minutes from the pueblo up to the park entry. We arrived at Machu Picchu around 8am, and Julian gave us a two hour tour. He started with a history of the ruins´ discovery, then we started walking. The entrance drops you onto the agricultural terraces, so you have to follow steps upward to see the sights. The terraces were used for agriculture but also for experimentation. Apparently, when excavating some of the area, quite a large number of foreign seeds were discovered, making archeologists believe that the Inca were experimenting to determine what they could and could not grow.

We viewed the residential areas, then moved on to the temples. The Temple of the Sun is a rounded building with two windows about 20 feet apart. One window aligns perfectly with the sun on the Winter Solstice and the other does the same on the Summer Solstice. Near the temple is a complex system of aqueducts, still carrying fresh water through the area. We walked up a long set of stairs to the Temple of Three Windows and the Main Temple. We were struck by the masonry; the stonework is perfect and still standing after 500 years.

Leaving the temple area, we walked by the quarry, where they would bring the large pieces of granite and finish the shaping/polishing before installation. There were several enormous pieces of granite still awaiting the masons´ tools. Rising from the quarry are the steps to the observatory. The building looks like a Mayan pyramid and at the top, in the center, is a stone sun dial. Unfortunately it was cloudy, so we weren´t able to experience it; however, we learned it was more important for them to tell the date (for agricultural purposes) than it was for them to know the time of day. The other side of the observatory drops you into the main plaza, which was a large, grassy area, where I imagined a bustling community. At the far end of the plaza were a couple of buildings, between which sat the Sacred Rock. Julian told us that the Incas were so busy that they could not get to the top of mountains to make offerings, so they would find a giant rock that looked like a sacred mountain and make offerings there. In this case, the Sacred Rock not only looked like the sacred mountain in the distance but resembled a guinea pig.

Julian took us through a few other sites before leaving us on our own. Kim and I had to get back to the other side of the park, as we had 10 am tickets to climb Wayna Picchu Mountain. This is the giant mountain that looks down on Machu Picchu. We decided we were willing to give it a try and would be agreeable to quitting, if necessary. I had seen some harrowing pictures on Google images. The trail is mostly steps, up a steep mountain, sometimes only a foot wide, hanging a thousand feet up a sheer cliff. The park allows only 400 visitors per day, so we felt lucky to have a ticket. It had started to rain, and we began the hike in a downpour. The rain lifted in about 30 minutes, and we scrambled our way to the top. Just before the peak, you have to crawl through a cave that takes you to the back side of the mountain. From there, it is a steep set of stairs up to the peak. The views of Machu Picchu, from the top, were amazing. We rounded the front of the mountain, where there were additional ruins of a building and some farming terraces. The stairs coming down along the ruins were steep and narrow. Enough so that the three girls in front of us had to sit down and take them one at a time. It slowed us down a bit, but we got back down in time to enjoy the park for a few more hours before calling it a day.Lue lisää