Machu Picchu

We have a day in Cuzco that we could tell you about, but I’m going to go ahead and skip to the good stuff. Today we went to the Lost Incan City of Machu Picchu. It was unreal. Absolutely the most glorious, magnificent sight I have ever seen. We’ve seen a lot of amazing landscapes, but the early morning view of an empty Machu Picchu with the clouds just clearing to give us our first view of the ruins…I still get goosebumps. I don’t consider myself an emotional person (Steph concurs), and this is a little cheesy, but I literally almost cried at the sight of it. It was that good.

First we’ll start with our train ride yesterday from just outside Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the closest town to Machu Picchu. It started through some farmland and poor little towns, then followed the Urubamba River into some gorgeous mountains. At first everything was fairly dry and brown, then slowly got greener and greener until we eventually were in a thick jungle, with incredibly high cliffs and mountains all around us. I hate to say it, because the train is grossly overpriced, but it was worth it. Aguas Calientes itself turned out to be a pretty nice little town. We had heard really bad things about it - touristy, overpriced, ugly - of which the first two were true, but we thought that it was overall kind of nice, especially considering the beautiful setting. Plus, you know it’s going to be touristy and overpriced is generally included with touristy so we didn’t really mind much. The restaurants there are really competitive and aggressive - you can’t walk down the street without people constantly coming up to you trying to eat at their restaurant. It’s pretty annoying, but you have to learn to just say ‘no’ and keep walking. Any sign of weakness and they’ll pounce.

Main square in Aguas Calientes

Aguas Calientes from the Urubamba River

Originally we planned to visit Machu Picchu on the afternoon that we got there, as I’ve heard that late afternoon is the best time to wander around the ruins. But, by the time we got there, found our hostel, ate lunch, and figured out where to get all the various tickets we would need, it was getting close to 1pm. Gates close at 5:30, so we were worried about being too rushed. It would have to wait until morning. I think we were secretly avoiding this because deep down we weren’t sure we’d want to get up at 3am to see the sunrise, which you are pretty much obligated to do. Word to the wise: don’t be lazy. Getting to Machu Picchu before sunrise was the best decision we’ve made in a long time.  After a lot of debate we decided to walk up to the site instead of taking the bus. The reason for this is two-fold: one, it saves us $7 each. Two, and most importantly, we get there before the first bus and therefore are one of the first people in line to get into the site. So at 3:30 this morning our alarm went off and we got a knock on the door from our hostel staff (poor man’s wake-up call). Luckily we weren’t the only ones doing this, and we joined up with the scattered groups of flashlights and headlamps and trudged off into the darkness. The hike up is not easy. We knew that. The day before we had scouted it out a little and knew the size and steepness that lay ahead of us. Nothing can prepare you. It was brutal. You walk about 20 minutes along the river, cross a bridge, then proceed for the next 45 minutes to do nothing but climb stair after stair after stair. Aguas Calientes is at about 6,700 feet altitude. Machu Picchu is 8,000 feet. We were dripping with sweat and dead tired by the time we finally made it to the top, but ecstatic that we were near enough to the front of the line and more importantly had beat the first bus up. There’s a lot of waiting in lines involved with visiting Machu Picchu, so we waited until the gates opened at 6am. For some reason everyone in front of us scattered out to find seats for the wait. We’re not line-cutters, but did slowly make our way up near the gates. After all, there was no line for us to cut. Again, we were glad we did this since we were in the first 20 people or so to enter the site. It was just starting to get light, but still really foggy, so we made our way to the Watchtower which is where all the classic Machu Picchu photos are taken. Surprisingly we had the spot pretty much to ourselves. As the sun slowly rose and lit up the ruins, the clouds all parted for about a 10 minute window where we got the most glorious view. It was amazing. Not only is the city itself beautiful, with its gray stone walls and manicured green grass, but the deep valley and mountains surrounding it are spectacular. Essentially nobody was inside the city yet, so we were lucky enough to get a very rare view of the ruins empty, except for the small herd of alpacas (or are they llamas?) that are the only remaining permanent residents.

Just as the clouds were starting to clear

The alpacas are the first to arrive

After soaking in the view for a bit (and still catching our breath from our hike up), we went to explore the site. First we headed to an old Incan bridge, for no other reason than it was on the map and would be uncrowded.  Nothing spectacular, but we got to see some ridiculously high cliffs and had some good photo ops along the way.

Our first wildlife encounter!

Incan bridge on the side of a cliff

Steph enjoying the view

From there we just wandered around the ruins for a while. It’s a relatively huge site, with lots of out-of-the-way areas to explore. We decided not to hire a guide, mainly because we didn’t have enough money (there is only one ATM in Aguas Calientes that only takes Visa), but were able to listen in to other groups at some of the main points of interest. I’m sure there are some really interesting things that we missed out on, but a lot of it is just conjecture. They don’t really even know what Machu Picchu was used for, much less the uses of many of the buildings or way of life. The most accepted theory is that it was a winter resort for the elite Incans, with about 750 people living there in what would be “peak season“ - the dry season. It was built around 1430 AD and abandoned a short 100 years later when the Spanish came and conquered the Incans. But the Spanish never actually found Machu Picchu, and it was left abandoned until Hiram Bingham made the official rediscovery in 1911. In reality some peasant farmers knew of the site, and some German explorers had been there earlier, but apparently kept the site to themselves. Anyways, we explored for a little while and took hundreds of photos of the amazing archeology, stonework, and landscape.

Steph in the main entrance to the city

I think I was lost...

Incredible scenery from the ruins

Even this chinchilla liked the view

Another bonus of getting to the site early is that you can get a stamp to climb Wayna Picchu, the pointy mountain in the background of the first picture above. Only 400 people a day are allowed to climb the steep, rocky trail to the peak 1,000 feet above Machu Picchu. We were pretty content on the stair-climbing for the day, but were told this was not-to-be-missed, so at 10am we reluctantly got back in line so we could climb more stairs. Hooray! The climb wasn’t nearly as bad as the first, but still very steep and many, many stairs. We battled through and were rewarded at the top by sweeping 360 degree views of the mountains and valleys with the seemingly small gray mass of Machu Picchu far below us. By this point we were more than happy with our visit (and sufficiently tired), so we headed down and straight to the exit, with a quick stop to take a few sunny pictures from the Guardtower for good measure.

Steph literally crawling up the stairs

View of Machu Picchu from Wayna Picchu, with the road up on the left

We’re currently on the train back to Cusco and were just entertained by a fashion show from our crew. It was quite hilarious to see these guys who are clearly not comfortable as runway models walking down the center aisle of the train sporting the latest in alpaca fashion. Kind of the cherry on top of a brilliant day in Peru. We made a separate folder for all our Machu Picchu pics, which you can see HERE. We also took some pretty good videos, which we will try to upload to YouTube.

Nazca and Arequipa

Sorry we haven't posted in a few days, but we've been stranded in the desert (no joke). It all started pretty innocently, with a planned night in Nazca to see the Nazca Lines - huge drawings in the desert that are about 1500 years old. Turns out, Peru is pretty popular, so all the buses out of Nazca were booked the day we wanted to leave. Okay, so it was only a day longer than we wanted to stay (about 58 hours instead of 34), but you don't understand this town. Actually, we kind of liked it when we got there. Sure, it was dusty, noisy, and had absolutely nothing going on, but it wasn't without it charms. The town square was nice, and the main tourist street was nice enough for a stroll. It was one of the only street in town that is paved, and I guess they enjoyed it so much that they decided to pave every other street at the same time. The construction added considerably to the dust and noise levels. In retrospect, it was probably just the fact that it was warm that intrigued us about Nazca. We probably would have found some level of charm in Baghdad after coming from cold and foggy Lima. Anyways, we were there for one reason - to do an overflight of the Nazca Lines.

This is Nazca

The technical term for the Nazca Lines are that they are geoglyphs. They are credited to the Nazca people in around 500 AD but, again, they don't really know. There are hundreds of individual figures, from simple triangles to complex animals. I actually think they were created by aliens, for two reasons: one, how on earth could an ancient civilization draw such perfectly formed drawings in the desert with few (and distant) lookout points, and two, how else do you explain the "Astronaut" drawing?

They say this is an astronaut, but I know the truth

Really the only good way to see the lines is with an overflight on a tiny little airplane. We just love those. It cost about $70 each, but when in Rome. We were warned to not eat anything before the flight, but how bad could it be? It couldn't be worse than our crazy, windy flight in New Zealand. Steph took dramamine and had her motion-sickness bracelets on just in case. Turns out, she would need them. The pilots take you on a pre-determined course from one figure to the next, and even though you can see them just fine out the window, they find it necessary to turn the plane completely sideways so you look straight down on each geoglyph. Then, they do the same on the other side of the plane, just in case you can't look over the one person sitting next to you. I consider myself pretty bulletproof in the motion-sickness department, but even I got queasy. Steph with her medicine and black magic managed about the same. Still, it was really impressive to see the drawings first hand. Some of them were surprisingly small, but some as big as 200 yards across. They are perfectly drawn and must have taken very careful planning and coordination...by the aliens I mean.

Monkey

Condor

We survived

So after you get off the flight, your list of things to do in Nazca is pretty much checked-off. There are other tours that they will take you on, of course, but none of them seemed all that great. We had another day and a half until our bus would leave town. Let's just say it was a boring, boring day and a half. The Nazca Lines have been in place for 1500 years without disturbance, and all they did to build them was to dig a little in the dirt. That should tell you how barren this place is. We sat on the computers in the internet shop for hours, read and sat in the square, ate at a desert cafe a bunch of times, and just walked around. On top of all that, our bus was two hours late. Needless to say we had overstayed our welcome and were happy to get out of Nazca.

Not only was that extra day in Nazca a real waste of time, but it also threw a major wrench in our travel plans. We have to be in Cusco on the 1st for our train to Macchu Picchu, and were hoping to visit both Arequipa and Lake Titicaca before then. It took some debating, but due to time and transportation constraints  we decided to skip Lake Titicaca. We arrived in Arequipa this morning, and take an overnight bus (about 10 or 11 hours - don't worry, we have sleeping pills and booked the "first class" seats) to Cusco tomorrow night. That'll give us some time to acclimize and explore Cusco before going to Macchu Picchu. But first, we have about two days in Arequipa. You may not have heard of it before (I hadn't), but it is the second largest and apparently the second most popular tourist town in Peru (behind Cusco). Turns out, as it usually does, that this is no accident. We went into downtown earlier this afternoon and it is really, really nice. Arequipa is nicknamed "the White City" because of it's many colonial-style building made of sillar, a pearly white volcanic rock. It is also framed by 3 big (dormant) volcanoes. We spent a couple of ours walking around downtown - there are many churches, monasteries, markets, and public areas to explore. Steph especially liked the little side alleys that led to charming little courtyards, usually with a fountain in the middle surrounded by cafes and shops.

Arequipa's main square

There are little cafes like this everywhere

The main square with the mountains in the background

We are also really happy with our hostel, which is a pretty new house about 10 minutes outside the city. They have lots of things to do - pool table, ping pong, movie room, video games, plus a nice patio and hammocks outside to enjoy the warm sun. Basically, a good place to recharge out batteries after they were drained in Nazca. (I'm sorry I'm bashing Nazca so much - I would actually recommend a visit, just make sure you have a ticket out before you book your ticket in.) We may decide to take a tour tomorrow, we may just hang out. At the very least, we'll post again on the 31st from Cusco as we prepare for our trip to Macchu Picchu! Can't wait!