Amazing Visit to Machu Picchu
Trip Start
Mar 17, 2005
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Trip End
Mar 13, 2006
Machu Picchu,
Peru
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Being that Machu Picchu is probably South America´s biggest tourist destination the price to visit the site can quickly add up for the budget traveler. The only way to get to the site is to take a train to the town of Aguas Calientes. This train can cost as much as $450 per person if you are a high roller and want the full service treatment. What they don´t really tell you is that you can do it for extremely cheap (relatively speaking) by working your way through a few picturesque towns by bus (and stopping off along the way to visit the markets, try the foods, etc.) to the town of Ollataytambu and catch an evening train from there which is mainly used by locals but they reserve two cars for foreign backpackers. What is great about this scenario is that you arrive at the town of Aguas Calientes (a great little place with hotsprings and restaurants sometimes offering 4 for 1 drink specials) at night, then have the next morning to head up to Machu Picchu early before the other tourist trains arrive and you basically have the place to yourself!
So, we headed up early and it was AMAZING as we got there just as the mist was lifting off the mountain and the clouds were breaking above (it POURED the night before so we were a bit nervous), which left us with beautiful Machu Picchu all to ourselves in the morning sunlight.
A llama came up and surprised me
We wandered around, took the ¨classic¨ picture and then worked ourselves into a tour that was just starting for the next couple hours. It was absolutely amazing to see the architectural skill of the Incas first hand. It often appeared like they must have used modern day machinery to cut some of the huge boulders so perfectly. According to our guide, no one knows for sure how they cut them, and many of purposes of the creations of the Incas at this site are still a mystery, although they clearly have some relation to the astronomical realm. We spent most of the day there and then walked back down to the town (about 1 hour and 30 minutes through the high jungle) and were basically spent by that time!For those that are interested, here´s a little bit more history and info about the site:
Machu Picchu (in the native Quechua language: Old Mountain; sometimes called the "Lost City of the Incas") is a well-preserved pre-Columbian Inca ruin located on a high mountain ridge, at an elevation of about 2,350 m (7,710 ft) Machu Picchu is located above the Urubamba Valley in modern-day Peru, about 70 km (44 mi) northwest of Cuzco. It is thought that the site was chosen for its unique location and geological features. It is said that the silhouette of the mountain range behind Machu Picchu represents the face of the Inca looking upward towards the sky, with the largest peak, Huayna Picchu (meaning Young Mountain), representing his nose. The Inca believed that the solid rock of the Earth should not be cut and so built this city from rock quarried from loose boulders found in the area. Some of the stone architecture uses no mortar, relying on extremely precise cutting of blocks that results in walls with cracks between stones less than 1 mm wide.
On July 24, 1911, Machu Picchu was brought to the attention of the West in the person of Hiram Bingham, an American historian then employed as a lecturer at Yale University. He was led there by locals who frequented the site. This controversial explorer/archaeologist began the archaeological studies there and completed a survey of the area. Bingham coined the name "The Lost City of the Incas", which was the title of his first book.
Bingham took 5,000 archeological artifacts back with him to Yale University. These artifacts -- despite the Peruvian government's longstanding requests for their return -- have yet to be given back.
