Machu Picchu, Tourist Frenzy, Train Strike
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
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126
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Machu Picchu,
Sacred Valley,
Peru
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Machu Picchu (Quechua: "Old mountain") is a pre-Columbian Inca site located 2,400 meters above sea level. It is situated on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, which is 80 km northwest of Cusco and through which the Urubamba River flows. The river is a partially navigable headwater of the Amazon River. Often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu probably is the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire.
It was built around the year 1460, but abandoned as an official site for the Inca rulers a hundred years later, at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire. Although known locally, it was said to have been forgotten for centuries when the site was brought to worldwide attention in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an American historian. Since then, Machu Picchu has become an important tourist attraction
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. It has recently come to light that the site may have been discovered and plundered several years previously, in 1867 by a German businessman, Augusto Berns.Machu Picchu was declared a Peruvian Historical Sanctuary in 1981 and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983. It is also one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. Since it was not plundered by the Spanish when they conquered the Incas, it is especially important as a cultural site.
Machu Picchu was built in the classical Inca style, with polished dry-stone walls. Its primary buildings are the Intihuatana, the Temple of the Sun, and the Room of the Three Windows. These are located in what is known by archaeologists as the Sacred District of Machu Picchu. In September of 2007, Peru and Yale University reached an agreement regarding the return of artifacts which Hiram Bingham had removed from Machu Picchu in the early twentieth century.
Machu Picchu is so important as a cultural site that it is an absolute mecca for tourists and we went on a day when the trains were on strike which meant there were no day trippers at the site that day. Simon from Casa de La Gringa had booked us a train ticket and accommodation package for our journey and there were quite a few problems with the package. We joined the masses on a shuttle bus to Ollantaytambo and caught a train on to Aguas Calientes which is the springboard town for visiting Machu Picchu. The whole set up is a serious tourist palava indeed. These are pampered tourists on packaged holidays and many loud Americans were present
Peru rail before the strike
. Aguas Calientes is the village nestled in the deep valley below Machu Picchu 8km away. the town is enclosed by towering walls of stone and cloud forest. The name Aguas Calientes means hot waters so we decided that we simply must go to the hot springs that are located 10 minutes walk up Pachacutec. There is a cool rooftop bar there that has shaman paintings and dreamcatchers and mobiles that catch the wind plus very good frozen margaritas. We sat around for awhile with other tourists in the various different pools of hot water then got out of the pool when the owner of the bar, a peruvian indian got in the water and started to hit on us. We ate the favourite stuffed avocado dish at chez maggies pizza shop and saw a parade in town. We had dinner at a restaurant where a traditional Andean band were playing. The hotel refused to give us a double bed because we are a same sex couple but we battled to get the room we had booked with balcony and view.
The next day we woke very early and met our guide in the square. The requirement is that you must use a guide for Machu Picchu visits. We joined a long line of buses going to the site and made it in the gate before the sun rose and before the Inca trail hikers arrived. There was a heavy fog of clouds over the site that disappeared when the sun came out giving us the classic Machu Picchu view that you see on postcards. We ditched our guide and did our own tour checking out the various areas like the tower, the temple of the condor, royal enclosures, the group of the three doorways, ceremonial rock, the main square, astronomical observatory, the three windows, the temples, agricultural zone and the main gate
Train to Machu Picchu
. We had fun chasing llamas around and making videos. We were too lazy to climb Waynapicchu, the large mountain you see in most of the photos even though we had tickets to do it.Even though there were lots of people there we could still feel the magnificent energy of the site and were glad to have experienced it.
There were lots of people there and we had just heard that there was a train strike in Aguas Calientes and that limited if not any trains would be running back to Ollantaytambo this day. Bad for us because we have flights to catch from Cusco and into Iquitos for the jungle tour and we can´t really miss them. We went to the train station to re-schedule our tickets for seats on one of the only trains going back to the town. This part of the journey was okay with military police in every carriage but after this it all turned into a hellish nightmare.
The train carpark resembled a war zone with tour guides trying to round up all their guests who were scattered everywhere. The military police had set up camp and no buses were leaving to return to Cusco. Word spread that farmers and protesters had rolled large boulders onto the roads and blocked the transport route into Cusco. The protest was nationwide today and we think it is about a food shortage.How were we going to get out of there? No chance for now. I started to get seriously ill throwing up and complete nausea that floored me. After a few hours we were able to board the bus and move slowly in a a convoy wedged between police and military vehicles towards Cusco, stopping many times. At one point we stopped in a town square and i jumped out to be sick. For the remainder of the trip i had to use sick bags and throw them out the window. I couldn´t get off the bus because the driver was not allowed to stop for safety reasons and we were in convoy with vehicles in front and at the back. We hit Cusco in the early hours of the morning and took a room at Lesley´s house.
