Machu Picchu

I made it to Machu Picchu!

While the ruins have been at the top of my travel list for a while and I’ve known I would be visiting them since spring, I couldn’t commit to the date I would actually be in Peru until it was too late to get a permit to hike the Inca Trail. This, however, meant that I had the opportunity to hike the Lares Valley Trek with half of my tour group while the others took the Inca Trail.

But before I get to the hike, I spent the day before our trek began touring the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco, which is home to many Inca ruins. The tour actually began with a trip to a small village that GAP sponsors. The women in this village are the wives of the porters and cooks GAP uses on the Inca Trail and Lares Trek. They approached GAP about six years ago and asked for support in developing a weaving project. The women then learned the ancient weaving techniques including dying their own wool using local plants for color. They have made a lot of economic progress while preserving their cultural heritage. (They’ve also become great saleswomen--they talked me into buying the purple scarf and hat you’ll see in several pictures in this entry.)

Andean woman dying alpaca wool 

Traditional Andean weaving

 We then saw several Inca ruins in both the cities of Pisac and Ollantaytambo. It turns out the Inca were incredible urban planners, and they conquered tribes that had the skills they needed in order to build these cities. I’m including some pictures, and these ruins are impressive. But, as our tour guide says, once you’ve seen Machu Picchu, everything else is just stones.

Pisac

Pisac

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo. Note the scarf and hat. :)

Aaron hijacking my scarf and hat at the hotel

 Our trekking started early Sunday morning. After an hour bus ride we arrived in Kiswarani where we unloaded our supplies and watched our porters load them onto the backs of horses and llamas. We had met our guide, Demas, for this trek a few days before and he had also been our tour guide for the Sacred Valley. Demas is an interesting guy. He’s an anthropologist and very knowledgeable about Peruvian history. When he wants to share information, he shares it very enthusiastically. He doesn’t make eye contact though when speaking to the group. Rather, he looks at everyone at chest level, which can feel a bit odd as an audience member. And, he often isn’t in the mood for answering questions. I actually had several nice conversations with him, but he tended to talk only with me and another girl in the group. The other trekkers joked they wouldn’t be able to pick him up out of a lineup—he led the group, but only if you were fast enough to keep up with him. 

This 12-year-old-girl and her baby brother were
 curious as we  got reading to begin our trek.

Preparing the llamas

Ready to go!

 We hiked at a pretty good pace, so instead of stopping for lunch each day in the originally planned spot, we hiked on through to our overnight campsite both nights. (There was another group doing the same trek that started about 30 minutes behind us the first day. Our entire group was eating lunch at our campsite by 1:30. The last of their hikers made it to the site at 7:30 that evening.) This pace was fortunate as it meant we missed hiking in the rain storms each day. It also meant we had a lot of time in the afternoon to kill.

The route was really beautiful. We traveled through all sorts of microclimates and it felt like I was constantly taking off or putting on layers of clothing. (The second day we climbed a 4800 meter (15750 foot) pass!) 

Views along the trail

The group

This little boy, Elias, was traveling alone along
 the trail to take lunch and supplies to his parents. 

"Shaggy," as we called him followed us along the trail
the whole first day. Note the dreadlocks.

The food they prepared for us was delicious!

Snack time--popcorn!

Sophie and me enjoying lunch.

View from the campsite the first night

First night view

It was absolutely freezing at night! The first night I kept adding
clothes to stay warm. In the end, I  wore thermal bottoms,
pajama bottoms, two thermal tops, an alpaca wool sweater (with
hood), a fleece (with hood), a double lined hat, wool gloves,
a scarf, and three pairs of  wool socks!

The sun is pretty strong at this altitude. This was
Halan's defense after getting burnt the first day.
We all ended up with pretty pink faces.

Second day views

The path also exposed us to some very remote villages where families live in one-room thatched roof houses, wear traditional clothing, farm, and care for llamas. It’s an amazing contrast to my perception of typical 21^st century life, and it makes me wonder about the locals’ perception of this modern life they see as us travelers come through.

Mi amigo, Alfredo

Views the final day

The contrast was especially stark the second day of the trip when after lunch one member of our group pulled out his MacBook Air and we watched an episode of “An Idiot Abroad” (a hilarious British comedy about traveling—highly recommended if you’re into that type of thing) and then The Lion King. We invited the cook and porters to watch with us, which they did. It felt so strange to be in this little shack only accessible by foot or horse watching a show about the Trans-Siberian Railroad on this high tech machine with people who live without electricity.

The next day I was talking to Demas about this lifestyle contrast. He explained to me that there were now some programs in universities in Cusco designed to help educate and provide opportunities to the people in these local communities. However, many of the spots don’t actually go to people who the program was designed for. Furthermore, he said, many of the villagers who end up in Cusco are unhappy because life becomes so much more complicated in the city.

Train to Agua Calientes

We finished the hike Tuesday afternoon and traveled by train to Agua Calientes, the home of Machu Picchu. We were very grateful to have warm showers and a cozy bed that evening, even if the electricity was out at the hotel when we returned home from dinner that night.

Waiting for the bus

 We woke at 3:30 the next morning in order to leave the hotel by 4:15 to catch the bus to Machu Picchu. “I know it’s kind of silly,” Rudy, our fulltime tour guide explained, “but I get disappointed if we’re not the first people in line for the bus.” It was a close call because there were people at the bus station when we arrived, but luckily for us, they hadn’t bought their tickets in advanced, which meant we were still first in line to board the bus when they started running at 5:30.

It was raining pretty hard when while we waited to the bus, but it subsided as we arrived at Machu Picchu. Once the gates opened we climbed up to see the “postcard” view of the ruins. At first we couldn’t see anything below because of the clouds, but slowly the mist cleared up to reveal the ancient city. Absolutely stunning. While it meant a very early wake-up call, arriving at 6:00 also meant we had the opportunity to see the ruins and take photos before the place became crowded. And I’m so glad we did.

Postcard view

 

Dane was asked by about 20 giggling girls
to pose for pictures. Pretty funny.  

More excited girls with Dane

There was a parade of llamas coming down the path I
was on. I was glad they didn't spit at me. 

After taking some pictures, we met up with the half of our group who had hiked in on the Inca Trail and then toured Machu Picchu together with their trail guide. We learned among other things that the Incan temple was designed so that the sun would shine through its central window perfectly during winter solstice, the most important day to the Incas; that they carved rocks using chisels and damp wood that expanded when it froze, breaking the rock; that the type of stones used in the walls of buildings tell about the purpose or occupant of a building; and that the Inca had many sophisticated water channels to support their city.

The morning was ours after completing the tour, and I found myself both walking among the ruins and relishing the views from above as the mist danced among the stone buildings and majestic mountains.