The Inka Trails and Machu Picchu

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  Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley, Peru
Monday, June 30, 2008

Hello again; at last. Its been a full week since we last wrote, and it feels like we haven`t stopped for a moment in all that time. Today we begin 3 rest days back in Cusco, so there`s finally an opportunity to tell you about our adventures - and there have been lots of adventures to tell you about.

In our last installment, we were predicting an exciting evening watching the new year festivities in Cusco`s Plaza de Armas. After writing the entry, at about 10.00 am on June 24, we walked towards the Plaza to find the streets already lined with spectators, with many colourful floats and people assembling in picturesque disorder in every direction. We found an upstairs coffee shop which had a balcony overlooking the Plaza, and planted ourselves there in the deluded expectation that we could watch the parade from our vantage point, and walk back to the hotel when it finished

campsite

. Little did we know that this parade would not `finish` for another three days! It was still going well into the night, and when we retired to our rooms, we found we could have continued to watch the whole spectacle live on TV were it not for the fact that our tour to the Valle Sagrado (Sacred Valley) and Ollantaytambo was leaving first thing the next morning.

The other thing we got to do in Cusco before we left was to visit the underground temple where the virgins were sacrified to Mother Earth during the 1500`s. There are so many entertaining places to visit here, so we are having to mention only the ones which provide the most fun.

Tony woke on the morning of our trip to Ollantaytambo feeling like a dog`s breakfast, and spent the day mega-dosing on vitamins before sleeping for a modest 14 hours non-stop. As a therapy it proved very successful, and the following morning he was as fit as an (elderly) Mallee bull. This was fortunate, as the reason we had stopped in Ollantaytambo was to go on a 3-day hike along one of the `alternative` Inca Trails starting the next morning. On the way to Ollantaytambo we stopped at some excellent markets, where Clare bought paintings from a deaf and mute artist, and also to visit some of the most interesting Inca ruins

Curious about Tony

. On the side of one mountain we saw a huge warrior head that had been sculptured from the rock, and each year, at sunrise on the winter solstice, his massive nose is touched by the first ray of the sun. Of course we had missed this splendid moment by just 4 days, damn it!

We experienced our first organisational blunder while waiting at Ollantaytambo for our trail guide to arrive for our briefing. It turns out that he was back in Cusco looking for us. Consequently we had no briefing at all, and knew nothing about the plans until a bus load of people arrived at our hotel at 8.00 am to pick us up. Clare had gone for a walk into town and needed to be tracked down without warning, we did not know that we should have packed five days worth of clothing and supplies instead of three, and we had no idea that the big backpacks full of our other stuff would be be returned to our Cusco hotel for collection six days later. Despite this initial confusion, the trail proved itself an experience not to be missed, although very hard work at times. We climbed to an altitude of 4300 metres before descending into a more oxygen rich atmosphere, and saw many beautiful snow-capped mountains, valleys and lakes. Perhaps the most interesting thing was passing through several isolated villages, which have no access by any method other than foot, and where the people still lead traditional lives - farming the land, weaving textiles, and sending their children out to solicit cash from tourists - free from roads, motor vehicles, and electricity

cute niños

. Without doubt the least enjoyable aspects were the plummetting temperatures at night, which left us all shivering despite the multiple layers of clothing and steaming hot food provided by the cooks, and the toileting arrangements. On this latter subject, Tony has taken some lovely photos of the toilets, which will either appear on this page at a later date, or in a special feature on the toilets of Peru which is currently a work in progress.

At the conclusion of the trail, we all boarded a train to Aguas Caliente, which sits 400 metres directly under Machu Picchu. The town is situated in a pretty, fertile valley, which experiences high rainfall, and provided us with the first rainforest landscape we had seen since leaving Cairns. It is a truly beautiful town, which also has no road access, but has railway lines running where streets would normally be seen. There is in fact one real road, which runs from the town up to Machu Picchu in a zig-zag fashion, and is used exclusively by tourist buses. We found ourselves in one of those buses at 6.00 am on 28 June.

Of course Machu Picchu is one of those magical places that have to be seen to be believed. It sits perched among dramatic mountain peaks amid terrain that would today be regarded as impossible to build on

Huts on On Hike

. We had hoped to climb Waynu Picchu while we were there, which is the mountain backdrop most often seen in photos of the ruins, however there is a limit of 400 persons permitted on the track each day, and we were too late to get a place. All was not lost however; while Clare found the ideal place to sit and contemplate the scenery, Tony made a quick dash up the Inca Trail to the Sun Gate, where he finally got to see the view denied to him by the fog when he walked the real Inca Trail in 2007. Last time, Machu Picchu was not even visible from Machu Picchu on account of the thick fog. This time, it was possible to experience that `first glimpse` from the Sun Gate that most Inca Trail hikers fawn over.

The next morning (yesterday) we used a combination of train and private car to return to the arid zone and Cusco. Much of the afternoon was wasted when we discovered that our large backpacks had not been returned to the hotel as promised, and we had to set two hotel staff to work to track them down. Our concerns were relieved big-time when they finally surfaced nearly four hours later, with everything intact and accounted for. We then took the night off to celebrate a little, to have dinner in town, to visit an underground bar that has a large Australian flag mounted on the main wall, and to see a local band of musicians in action in a cosy pub. We hope to be able to load many of our photos onto the blog while we are resting here in Cusco, so check again in a couple of days to see as well as read about what we have been up to.

Saludos amigos,

Tony y Clare.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Machu Picchu	Machu Picchu at 6.30am	Ruins at Ollantaytambo	Scenery while hiking
serious cooking	Street in Aguas Calientes (below Machu Picchu)	Taking it all in	View from car window heading to trail
We were there!

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