Machu Picchu

There are a large variety of tours to get to Machu Picchu with the Inca trail being the most popular. However, we had no reservations and after some debate on how to get there, we decided to go on our own via a series of buses, cars, foot paths, river crossings, and a train. It was myself, a Canadian, and a Spaniard. The plan was a 5 hour bus to the small town of Santa Maria, change to a collectivo (a small car that leaves when it is full) to Santa Theresa, change again into another collectivo to Hydroelectrica, take a zip-line across the river (you used to be able to cross, but the bridge got destroyed in a recent flood), walk an hour to the train station, ride the train to Aguas Calientes to spend the night, and hike the last hour to Machu Picchu early the next morning. If there is one thing I have learned while traveling, it is that not everything goes according to plan.

The initial bus, after leaving almost 40 minutes late, ended up taking 6 hours, and it was 6 hours of great movies (note my sarcasm) and even better music! With step one out of the way, we packed 5 people into a tiny car in Santa Maria, which felt tight until I saw another car of the same size with 12 school kids stuffed inside like luggage, and took off on the hair raising road to Santa Theresa. We must have had the local race car champion as our driver, because he was on a mission. We plowed through water, passed slower drivers with barely enough space for 2, skidded and bumped around corners, and got deathly close to the edge, until the only thing that could slow us down did; clunk, clunk, clunk, the sound of metal on dirt... flat tire. After popping on the spare I noticed the driver had stripped/broken 2 of the 4 bolts on the wheel. Luckily we were very near to Santa Theresa, but I never the less spent the last few miles gripping the door as we rumbled along on a spare that was barely hanging on. Santa Theresa to Hydroelectica and on to the train station was a rush of trail finding, speed walking, and a nice jog to cap it off. In the end, we missed our train by 10 minutes. Plan B: walk 2 hours in the dark along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes. The walk was the most uneventful part of the day and we strolled into Aguas Calientes at about 7:30, more than 12 hours after we had begun our day, exhausted and hungry.

Before I felt I had time to close my eyes the alarm of day 2 sounded at 3:45am and the proximity of Machu Picchu created excitement that silenced the need for sleep. The last hour to 2 of hiking from Aguas Calientes is a series of steep stone stairs that charge up the mountain to one of the most glorious Inca settlements in the world. As the hike began I realized we were not the only people up at such an extreme hour. We were joined by 30, maybe 40 people, and most were ahead of us. As I climbed my fatigue subsided, my legs felt strong, and my lungs took huge gulps of oxygen from the fresh morning air thick with fog. One by one hikers began dropping off, tired from the climb. I passed group after group and finally obtained a few moments of solitude as I hiked toward my destination under the night sky. I knew solitude would be hard to come by on this particular journey, so I consumed it while I could. I was one of the first to arrive at the gates and watched as the other hikers arrived, followed by the employee bus, and finally tour buses full of somewhat less determined visitors.

The initial walk-through was better than I had imagined. No picture could do justice to the feeling and sense of history these ruins hold. As we passed through 500 years of Inca history, the mist and clouds that surrounded us were slowly being pulled back by the rising sun; revealing temples, village houses, terraces, gardens, Andean crosses, and the surrounding mountains. I marveled at how the Incas built this community on the side of an enormous mountain with stones the size of houses and hardly any flat land. Every stone had to be cut and molded, every flat space had to be created, and as we learned later it was unfinished after 100 years of work. We spent the day walking the small corridors, climbing Huana Picchu (the mountain in the background of the famous photos of Machu Picchu), and learning about the construction and significance of different structures. After a wonderful day we headed down in the late afternoon for a hot meal and a soak in the hot springs.

On day 3 it was decided we would go back a different way... There is a train that runs from Aguas Calientes to a town where you can take a bus back to Cusco. However, the train is outrageously expensive (on my tight budget) and only travels 28km. Instead we would walk it. Thus, day 3 was 7 hours of walking 28km along train tracks with some stunning views of the surrounding peaks. Despite the slight boredom of walking on flat land for 7 hours, we had the satisfaction of knowing we returned to Cusco for the price of a Peruvian dinner ($3).