What a long day. It's quite amazing how many steps you can take when you wake up at 4am and don't really stop walking until after 2pm. This is exactly what we did today and I can't say that I regret anything of it. Today was the day that we finally reached Machu Picchu. I had been telling myself for weeks, if not months not to hype it up too much in my head. Everyone has seen the standard photo that genuinely everyone takes and I knew that this view would be enough to satisfy. As a result of this downplaying I was nothing short of absolutely blown away.
You have to start walking up to Machu Picchu just after 4am to avoid the queues and to see the sunrise (if you're lucky) so our guide told us. In the pitch black we set off with our American friends to reach the bridge that they use as an entrance to check your tickets. This was nothing in comparison to what we had in store for us ahead. The walk to the bridge had largely been quite flat. A complete contrast to the way up to Machu Picchu.
From the town of Aguas Calientes (hot water) you couldn't see Machu Picchu at all. You were only told that it was just over the brim of the mountain that leaned over the town imperiously, somewhere in the region of 500m higher than us. The next section was entirely steps and rocks - "the Inca route". I have no idea how or why these crazy guys in our past decided that this was such a good idea. As the light slowly came creeping up the other mountains it made it easier to climb, but also to get better views of the dense clouds littered in the valleys at various heights.
After an hour we had finally reached the true entrance, several litres of fluid lighter. I had no idea that it was so hot at 5am in the morning! A quick stamp onto our tickets and a glance at our passports to verify who we were and we were in. 100m in and as we passed the first house/ruin we were hit with close to the postcard view of this wonder of the world and what a wonder it was. What it is very easy to underappreciate is not the mountain that stands at one end of the historic city but the surrounding landscape of jungle mountains and the actual size of the site!
We met up with our tour guide a few yards further forward with the rest of our group and another group (more mosquito bitten Englanders). He went on to explain bits and pieces about the Incas and Machu Picchu whilst guiding us around the one-way system that takes you through the site. It's quite hard to believe quite how little is known about the Incas, Machu Picchu and basically their reasonings behind everything. Almost every building they have no idea about it's main purpose other than to guess whether it was a house, for agriculture or anything else. The main reason for this is the lack of note taking when they were alive. They didn't have a written language. Quechua - the language they spoke, which is still quite largely used today in Ecuador and Peru was only given an alphabet fairly recently in comparison with the history of the Incas. The history of the Incas was only about 100-200 years long. From the 1400s until they were decimated by the Spanish obliteration and pillaging that started in 1532.
The more we walked around Machu Picchu, the more we were able to get a feel for the impressiveness of the area. All of the tiered sections that you see were for agriculture. Today they look like ideallic gardens that have the occasional llama munching grass on. All of the stone being hand-cut with bronze tools and other rocks. The ability to build temples and houses, kept together with only some form of mud paste that has held it together in relative peace from the 1570s until it's rediscovery in 1911.
Unfortunately we were not able to spend all day there, or do what our fellow travellers were doing and trek up one of the mountains. There are two that you could do, the standard mountain in the back of the pictures - limited to 400 people per day and booked out until August or the mountain that is behind the majority of the city that you see in photos. This is the one I would have loved to do if I'd have had a few more hours in the closest I've come to paradise. The views afforded from several hundred more metres above the city would have been even more breathtaking.
Nevertheless, our time was up and we had to make the walk to the bus that from the same place of the previous day. This had been over a 3 hour walk of gentle uphill following a train track and accompanying trail to our hostel which lay past where we were. All we had to do was go down the steps (much easier said that done) and head back on the gentle downhill for around 2 hours. We were joined by a guy from England who was 19 who we spoke to for the journey. Comparing tales of travelling and discussing how it's so nice to be ABE (anywhere but England). He had come from Bolivia so we were asking for tips as it is our next destination in just under a week. The journey back to the bus was completed with relative ease via a quick fixed menu (starter, soup, a main and a drink) for £2.50 before getting on the right 6 hour bus back to Cusco. Machu Picchu was unforgettable. Unfortunately the wifi in our hostel in Cusco is pretty bad so I might struggle to upload photos, if any at all to do it justice. Maybe I will attach it so some later posts.
