Magic Picchu

I always knew from looking at the map that the citadel of Machu Picchu lies a fair way from the city of Cusco, however, I did not realise how difficult the terrain would be and what a trek it would take to get there. There were a dizzying amount of tours of different types but such choice was hurting my head. I decided to worry about it all later in the hope of meeting somebody with a plan that I could piggy-back. Why procrastinate today when you can procrastinate tomorrow and all that.

This allowed me to sit tight in Cusco and take my punishment for biking too long in too short a space of time. I was definitely exhausted but the local market was around the corner from the hostel, which was where I sucked up a lot of fresh fruit to replenish my stores of vitamins and minerals. Fruit is plentiful in Bolivia too, but they tend to chop it up into small pieces and throw it into a glass of peach juice or liquid yoghurt. Here they can afford blenders so 'combinado' smoothies were the order of the day.

My arrival to Cusco coincided with the Inti Raymi festival, which celebrates the winter solstice and is apparently the second biggest festival in South America. Cusco itself was mobbed and while I'm all up for a party the crowds were all a bit too much, not least the musical beds I had to play in the hostel every day as I had arrived too late to reserve the same bed for my whole stay. The parades in Bolivia are comical because everyone in the parade is getting as drunk as the people on the side of the road but in Peru it was all quite tame. After all the street processions the ceremony itself took place among the Inca ruins behind Cusco the next day. It was the whole reason everyone was in town and while I planned to go up I was suffering from a dodgy Indian curry. Once I could venture beyond the hostel I was delighted to be the only person left in Cusco. I could explore it with the camera without all the goons and people annoying me to buy stuff. By the time I ventured up the hill-side a lot of people were coming down. The ceremony took the whole day and a lot of people who had gotten up early to get a good vantage point on the hill-side were having to bail due to a rumbly tummy of the hunger variety. I don't have to worry so much about vantage points as being tall enough I can pretty much stand behind a crowd of smaller Peruvians and still see what is going on. Not much as it turned out. I was so glad not to have wasted the whole day up there. It was just like going to a Latin mass, even the Quechua were having a hard-time understanding the ceremony. The whole affair was certainly a far cry from the street parties of Lapa or Carnaval in Rio, which is really why the gringos had arrived in town.

Anyway, thankfully the whole thing was over and all the people deserted leaving me to get on with figuring out how to get to Machu Picchu. I had ridden the bike over the really long pass to the pretty market town in the next valley and that pretty much confirmed that there was no way I was ever going to bike there. You'd need an awful lot of time to climb such lofty mountains. While the trekking tours are not badly priced for what they are, I didn't have a whole lot of time available to me. Everything I looked at, even the DIY train route was coming in at more than I wanted to pay. Then, I bumped into my comrades in arms from Isla del Sol and things started to look up. I mentioned before that South America is just like Grafton Street in Dublin for the gringo; there is little chance of anonymity as no matter where you go you will keep bumping into people you know. Tarek and John were also of like-minds in terms of how they wanted to do Machu Picchu - as cheap as possible. Tarek and John had some leads and so I outsourced everything to them with the promise that we would meet up over dinner to discuss. Thanks to them I hit the jackpot; using the network of local buses and 'combis' (mini-van taxis) we could get to a hydro-electric plant and hike two hours along the train tracks to Aguas Calientes, the base-town to Machu Picchu. From there we could hike up the mountain to the citadel itself. So, while we had our plan nailed we were still unsure as to whether we could execute it in the time or as cheaply as we wanted to. I had a bus to catch and so I couldn't really afford too much delay.

John, Tarek, Harry (who I met in the hostel) and I met at the plaza at 7.15am and took a taxi to the bus-station. The taxi-driver told us to use the combi instead as it would be much quicker for not much more money. On arrival at the combi station we got out of the car and were mobbed by men and women as if we were pop idols. Each of them was busy dragging and shouting at us to get into their combi, some quick negotiations and we were on our way out of town. It seemed a crazy way of doing business but then you see them all smiling and chatting once we've made our decision and so you realise it's more a game than business. It would take five hours to make the town of Santa Maria over the Abra Malaga, which must have one of the most dizzying descents I have ever seen. The G-forces were throwing all sorts of shapes in my stomach down the back of the van as the driver was quite enjoying this part. I was a little jealous of the tourists at the summit of the climb getting ready to drop down it on mountain-bikes but then I found out that they didn't enjoy it so much as unless you are experienced in descending then you are on the brakes the whole time, which is pointless. The road itself was asphalt for 95% of it so mental note to self to drop down it on a racing bike one day. One must realise that the elevation of the peaks in Peru are like nothing I have ever seen. Normally valleys are at reasonably high elevations themselves making the peaks not so enormous but here the peaks are stratospheric compared to the troughs.

Our driver made good time despite a road-block and some near-nodding off. On arrival in Santa Maria we were quickly bungled into another taxi to the town of Santa Teresa. We didn't bargain on squeezing more passengers and groceries into the boot but thankfully these people hopped out soon enough to enable us to better cope with the very bumpy drive over another pass. The scenery was stunning and the farming even more impressive. I had never witnessed mountainsides so steep being cultivated but somehow they managed it without stepping them. I would have thought the rains would have washed the seed right down to the valley but clearly not. In Santa Teresa our taxi-driver bungled us into yet another taxi and we were on our way to the hydro-electric plant where we could pick up the train tracks to Aguas Calientes. Our driver seemed more interested in showcasing his western musical collection as his hands were more on the stereo than the wheel but thankfully he got us there in one piece. We had a couple of passengers who had been hiking the 'Inca Trail' and needed a lift. Due to the floods hikers had to change their route and could not arrive into Machu Picchu over the back of the mountain like in the past. For this section they were pretty much walking the road and in the searing heat it could not have been too much fun with bags on their backs etc. Once we started hiking along the tracks we realised that this was a very well-trodden path as we were not walking along the tracks but an actual path alongside the railway line. About thirty people were hiking with us and while we didn't get to town until nightfall, we were met at the end of the line by a bunch of girls who took us to their hostel. It was all too easy. We couldn't believe our luck; we had lovely twin rooms on the right side of town with a great shower for 5 dollars a night each. We were under the impression that we were going to get fleeced here and that the town was a dump. In fact it was a pretty nice place much like a snow-resort that was recently developed and thanks to a great deal of competition both good food and lodging were cheap and plentiful. Tarek had met a couple of friends who reminded us that we should probably pack food with us as opposed to buying it up there ($7 for a coke it turned out). We ended up making the best sandwiches ever and with a healthy does of Sublime chocolate we were well set for our 4am rise.

The reason for rising so early is that there is a peak that sits behind the citadel which only 400 people are allowed to go up each day. Huyana Picchu can only be accessed from the citadel itself so there is a daily race to be within the top 400 people at the gate to see Machu Picchu from this vantage point. The gates themselves don't open until 6am but you don't want to be too early as then you awaiting around in the cold. We set off at about 4.15am in the dark and followed a long line of people with the same idea. Needless to say, if there was going to be a race then I didn't intend to lose it so I started to break a sweat on the narrow track taking people straight up the mountain. It was only 500ms of elevation and as Machu Picchu sits at 2400ms I had lungs full of oxygen for a change. During the hike I wasn't passed at all and while I'm the slowest walker in the world in cities I can hike vertical pretty quickly. I summited just past 5am and in the end I needn't have worried as I was 11th at the gate; the other people before me must have started earlier. Tarek, Harry and John were not too far behind and after doing some market research to see how much we could sell our amazing sandwiches for we entered the citadel.

Unfortunately for me the light was a disaster for photography. The citadel was covered in cloud and so it was a case of sitting around and waiting until it cleared. The advantage of being one of the first in the gate is that you can get photos of the citadel without all the goons in the shot but as we couldn't see anything I would have to make do. By the time the cloud cleared the sun was really strong making that light very difficult to work with also. In the end conditions were too difficult to work with without a brilliant filter and a nice wide-angle lens. We did manage to snag a prime vantage point though by staking out a rock that successfully eliminated an awful lot of goons from the photos. Still, for such an iconic piece of real estate the photo-set is disappointingly bland.

People still don't know the reason for Machu Picchu's existence, whether it was as a country residence for the Indian gentry or whether it was as a big farm for experimenting with crops at different elevations using terraces. Whatever it was it is an amazing site that no camera can truly capture. The citadel itself is impressive but the lush green peaks that surround it are equally so. We had a great time exploring both Machu and Huyana Picchu and once we had demolished 'Machu Picnic' we made our way back the way we came. Our plan had been flawlessly executed until now and while we still needed to negotiate our way back we only managed to come unstuck in the town of Santa Maria. It was too late to get a combi back to Cusco unless we paid double and with the local buses being full we would have to sit it out for the night. However, we didn't give up and when the bus came through town Harry successfully negotiated us on it even though all the seats were reserved. A game of musical chairs ensued as we occupied available seats until people with reservations boarded and eventually I ended up in the aisle flat on my back trying to catch some shut-eye. While it wasn't comfortable I could now relax as I would make it back to Cusco in time to catch my 20 hour bus-ride to Lima.

It was far from an easy journey but the whole thing had been a great adventure as we only had the basis of a plan and so we never knew what to expect. Did we achieve our mission in doing it as cheap as possible, well we couldn't have done it any cheaper. To do a DIY trip by train would have cost about $125 and to take a less flexible tour about $170. Entry to the citadel alone is $43 and we managed to do the whole trip for $72 excluding food. Harry managed to do it for $50 thanks to a student card and while there are easier ways of getting there I doubt we would have had as much fun. Machu Picchu is one of the main reasons so many people visit this continent, for sure it did not disappoint and was a great way to round out my five months in South America.

Some photos are up in the gallery.

Talk soon

Marco

Comments

[Tarek]

Yeah! There it is! Nicely written and entirely true. Greets, Tarek