Machu Picchu

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  Machu Picchu, Peru
Friday, April 18, 2008

The best way to go to to Machu Picchu is by walking the Inca trail, but this takes a minimum of 4 days, and I wasnīt here for long enough. I let the train take the strain. The train runs the 130 Km from Cusco to a place called Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters) which is about 6 Km from Machu Picchu iteslf. You catch a bus from there to the main site.
The booking was made with a company called Puma Tours, which seemed quite appropriate, as the puma was sacred to the Incas. My mistake, as the company is actually owned by a lady called Edith Puma, and was nothing to do with sacred animals at all. The arrangements were all a bit last minute, so I couldn`t get a train all the way there, which was a bit of a disappointment (although coming back wasn`t a problem). I ended up in a pre-dawn dash back to Ollantaytambo in a mini-bus, to catch a 07:00 train. 
On the way, the mini-bus passed through a village called Chinchero which I`d visited the day before

Last train to Machu Picchu. View from Seat 2

. There is a large church here, which built on top of an Inca Temple during the Colonial period. It`s beautifully decorated, and contains several large oil paintings from this time. It turns out that Cusco was an important centre for religious art from the 16th to 18th Century, and was famous throughout the Americas for its art, originally baroque but evolving into its own style:
http://www.nuevosantander.com/cuzco.htm
I found it interesting anyway........
Any disappointment about not getting a train all the way disappeared when I saw my seat on the train, which was the best in the house (see picture). Most people think you go up to Machu Picchu, you actually go down, as the altitude at Machu Picchu is 2500 Metres, whereas Cusco sits at 3350 metres or 11,000 feet for example. It`s Machu Picchu`s situation amongst the surrounding mountains and cloud forest that give the impression that it`s higher than it actually is.
Sometimes, when you visit a famous place, it can be a bit of a let down compared to photographs that you`ve seen beforehand. That wasn`t the case here, as Machu Picchu is jaw-droppingly stunning, and photographs don`t do justice to the reality. The surrounding mountains were also very reminiscent of Madeira (the island, not the cake), which gave the whole place a familiar sort of feel

First sight - hold that view.

.
Machu Picchu is the most popular attaraction in the whole of South America. It wasn`t always so, and for much of the 1980`s and early 1990`s, the Sendoro Luminoso (Shining Path) guerillas operated just West of here in the highlands. They were more dangerous to Peruvians than visitors, but lots of people were frightened away, until a peace accord was signed with the goverment of Alberto Fujimori in 1991.
The guides here and in the Sacred Valley tell you that one reason the Incas built high up in the mountains was that it is safer during an earthquake. The theory says that on the flat, an earthquake moves like a wave, whereas in the mountains things tend to move together in one big lump, and this makes you safer. Well yeah, OK to a certain extent, but that certainly  isnīt a line Iīd spend much time trying to sell to the Pakistanis after the 2005 Kashmir quake. What`s without doubt though, is that Inca architecture has anti-earthquake techniques built into it. In 1950, Cusco suffered a major earthquake, which  destroyed 70% of the Colonial buildings in the city, but 100% of the Inca period buildings were left standing. This caught the attention of Universities in Japan and the US. The upshot is that many of the anti-earthquake techniques incorporated into modern buildings in cities like San Francisco and Tokyo is actually based on 500 year-old Inca technology.   
Another nice thing about Machu Picchu is that for once the souvenir stalls have been banished to Aguas Calientes, the village down in the valley below, leaving the site itself pretty much free of tourist tat

Machu Picchu 1

. I  always thought that the Thais were the world record holders in the "peddling crap to tourists" league. From what I can see though, the Peruvians are coming up behind them fast to challenge for the leader`s spot. The main difference between the two is that in Peru, the tat is of very high quality, however all the stalls are selling virtually the same stuff....God knows how they actually make a living.
Back on the train, the journey back to Cusco took a bizarre twist when the restaurant car staff suddenly started to model clothes, using the aisle of the carriage as a catwalk. The Yanks on board lapped it up, and their credit cards took a bit of a hammering...........I was just aghast. All in all though, an absolutely fantastic trip, which I would recommend without hesitation to anyone.
   
  
And the next stop is Lima.............................
 

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Machu Picchu 2	Cloud forest, Machu Picchu	Llamas grazing, Machu Picchu	Inca Terraces 1
Inca Terraces 2	Rain over Wayna Picchu	Cloud forest rainstorm, Machu Picchu	Wilcamayu, the sacred river

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