MACHU PICCHU

Finally, the moment you've all been waiting for: the trip to Machu Picchu. We left off in Ollantaytambo, waiting for the train. The train itself is an interesting situation where the Peruvians ride in different cars than then foreigners. The foreigners pay quite a bit more, and the train cars are therefore quite a bit different as far as comfort goes. I can't tell you much about the Peruvian experience, as I didn't ride in their cars, but Joe and I went in relative comfort, It was night, and there wasn't much to see, but we had individual seats and it seemed like a nice trip, even though I believe the engine was sort for ghetto and stopped a few times. (We didn't stop once on the way down and the train was nicer). Anyway, it took about an hour and a half to two hours to get to Aguas Calientes. The first thing that I noticed upon arrival was the mountains are SCARY close and REALLY steep. It's like the suckers are going to fall over on you. I am sorry to report that I didn't get any good pictures of the mountains, I took a few at night that didn't come out, and I forgot to take more when the sun was shining. Believe me though, they loom, they loom with a vengeance.

The Hotel: wasn't so great. I forget what it was called, which is unfortunate because I wouldn't recommend it, but the good news is that we were only there for 4 hours, and that the shower had hot water, which is all that I really cared about. I also carried Mauricio like 5 blocks uphill along with my backpack, and later found out he was feigning being asleep. Next time I think I'll toss him first to see if he's really asleep. Alas, we made it up to the hotel, in spite of the rain and the grade of the hill, and snatched a shower and a few hours sleep before getting up for the main event.

4:00 AM- we got up, showered, and hurried down to the buses that go from Aguas Calientes up to Machu Picchu. They start leaving at 5 AM, and we wanted to be on the first bus up. We were on the second, but good enough. We had a guide arranged for us who SUCKED, but thankfully, once we got up the mountain and he made us wait for about a half an hour for no reason, he handed us off to another guide who was great. I'd tell you the names, but there are dozens of guides, so the odds that you would ever deal with these guys if you go is pretty slim.

5:00 AM ish- we got on the bus and headed up the hill, and by hill, I mean mountain. In fact, "Machu Picchu" means, "Old Mountain" in Quechua. I would tell you lots of what I learned about Machu Picchu, but I feel like you folks can check out what wikipedia has to say much more easily that I can write it all out for you.

Around 6:40, we got to the gate to Machu Picchu, where we proceeded to wait for our guide (whose lameness has previously been established). I should mention, all the way up the mountain, we were passing hippy looking foreigners, (mostly Argentine) as they walked up the hill. Because of these hikers and their obscenely early morning start, we arrived early in the morning... to wait in a pretty large line.
That line got MUCH bigger after we arrived though, so good for us I suppose. After we were relieved of our lame guide, and got our better guide, we finally entered the gate and entered Machu Picchu.

First, we saw some terraces on the south side, apparently, this is where the bulk of the food for the cities was grown. This was my first glimpse of Machu Picchu as I rounded the bend:

(I know that some of you at this point are thinking that I am abusing the 'photomerge' function on Photoshop, but it's the only way I can do these sites justice)

Pretty snazzy, I know. From there, we hoofed it over to the main urban area, where we got this view of the Temple of the Sun:

After that, we went to the Temple of the 3 windows, and along the way, there was a prime example of how the Quechuas broke up rocks. They pounded sticks into holes and used other rocks to break them into straight bricks.

The rain was coming down pretty regular during all this and I was having a deuce of a time keeping my camera dry. I was also wrangling a cheap tripod that I purchased here. It was 20 dollars, and came in supremely handy. Another great purchase was my 100 Sole "Columbia" waterproof shell (38 bucks). It wasn't really Columbia of course, but they really pay attention to detail and it's a pretty decent fake. It even says that it is a Portland Oregon company on the tags.

But back to Machu Picchu. We finally made our way up to the Sun Dial, which was pretty nifty looking, as you can see here:

Interestingly, there is a noticeable chip out of the top of the Sun Dial. What happened was the beer company, Cusquena, was filming a commercial and the camera fell on it. .... Ooops. Yet another reason beer sucks. Alas, from there, we went down to the gate of Machu Picchu where the trail goes on to a peak, Waynapicchu. We were with the grandmother and child, also Malu and company are weak sauce, so we didn't go up there. It would have been pretty unrewarding anyway, because the whole day we couldn't even see that peak due to the clouds and rain. I imagine that the view down was as lame as the view up.

This gate is on the far north end of Machu Picchu, as you can see on the handy map that I included in this link We then wended our way down south again through the "House of Factories" area, and somewhere in there we happened upon the "Condor Temple". From the skeletons that have been excavated in that area, they figure that the Incas sacrifices llamas/alpacas and other animals there. Here is a picture of the Condor Temple, the dark rocks above are supposed to be the wings.



I have emphasized the condor so you can see it better. The condors here have a white beard looking thing under their necks, and the Incans even included this detail in their temple.

At this point, it was probably around 10 AM, so we stopped to eat some cookies and juice around the prisoners area. That is where this picture was taken:


At this point, we walked up to the "guardhouse" which is situated on the south side at the top of the terraces where we started. The fog didn't permit for very good pictures, but in a field below the guardhouse, Joe asked Carolina to marry him, and she said "yes", so high five for Joe.

After the proposal, we went back down the mountain and ate lunch in Aguas Calientes.
Here's a video of the event:
... Nevermind, that's a lie. There are lots of good videos to share, but my video editing software is gone for the moment. I will attempt to rectify this later. For now you get an official IOU. (There are also lots of good videos of Valle Sagrado, but because they are high definition and really big files, I need to compress and edit them, which I need software to accomplish. My apologies.)
We did end up exploring, but it was so wet I didn't feel like risking my camera any more than I already had.
The train ride down happened about 2 PM and that was a lot cooler than the way up. The train was better, and the view was splendid. I have a video of it, which will be uploaded at a later time. In any event, here are some closing shots for you: