Machu Picchu

Complete

Sometimes you visit a place that everyone raves about and you say..."well I expected a little more from that place"...or..."what was all the fuss about?"

Well Machu Picchu is not a place like that ...it's everything we thought it would be...and more. It is a truly magical place.

There are lots of words on the internet about Machu Picchu..who built it, when, why, why was it deserted, etc., etc. so I won't bother with any of that. Just a bunch of pictures and a few words.

The get to Machu Picchu you need to get to a place called Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters en espanol). To do that you catch a train at a variety of places. We caught our train near the town of Ollantaytambo.

She's a Peru Rail train.

I should have taken a few shots of the interior of the train because it was really quite civilized.  Oh well.

The scenery along the way to Aguas Calientes is very beautiful. It was a really nice train ride.  They even had local beer - Cusquena - for sale,

A glacier in the distance.  We are at a fairly high altitude here.

When we get to Aguas Calientes we take a bus up the hill to Machu Picchu.  You can walk up if you like and we see lots of young people doing it. For us old guys the bus is easier.

The picture below shows the road up to Machu Picchu. A lot of switchbacks for sure. There's a more impressive picture coming.

The only thing at the top is the Belmond Sanctuary Lodge, where we stayed one night, a souvenir store and quick food place - all run by Belmond and the ticket entry place. I think you have to purchase your tickets in advance these days.

We got there about noon and had lunch and then visited our room and we finally got to the actual site just after 1:00 PM.

Some hotel pics here.

The main picture above is us just after entering the site.

A bunch of pictures below and a few words.  Our guide was explaining all this stuff to us but it's hard to concentrate on what someone is saying when you're looking at all these things.

Apparently these were storehouses or motels for visitors.

These rocks would ultimately been used in construction if the site had not been abandoned.

All the terraces grew crops for the people living here.

Some of the construction incorporated native rock as shown below.

The mountain pictured below through the doorway is Huayna Picchu - more on that further down.

The pics above are all from the first afternoon.  

The pics below are from the second day.

We took a different route the second day. When we started yesterday afternoon we took the upper route that everybody takes in the morning.  It gets crowded as shown below. By afternoon the upper route has cleared out quite a bit. Taking the lower route in the morning, as we did on the second day, made good sense.

So just some more pics.  Probably some repeats from yesterday.

The thing below has some kind of religious purpose according to our guide. Like its a sundial or something to do with the seasons.  I don't think anyone really knows and the guides just make stuff up.

The huge mountain or hill that rises up from the centre of the pic below is Huayna Picchu.  Apparently Huayna means NEW and Machu means OLD. Pichhu means MOUNTAIN.  At least that's what the guide said.

So it was always our intention to climb to the top of Huayna Picchu.  We'd booked this trip about a year ago and you have to reserve a spot to  climb it. It's like $50 a head or something like that. Don't recall.

So that's Terri and our guide Francis at the start of the climb.  Looks pretty easy - right?

Well it gets a little more uphill as you go further.

And the stairs were not constructed to any building code.

So in between when we booked this trip and when we actually did it the arterial blockage in my right leg got a lot worse and I had to give up about 70% of the way to the top.   It was disappointing to say the least. The trip back down was even difficult so I knew that it was the right decision.

Terri and the guide made it to the top and she took the following pics.

The final steps are really difficult.

And this is a fantastic shot looking back down at what is normally referred to a Machu Picchu but is really called The Citadel. Machu Picchu is actually the tall mountain directly above The Citadel. Next time, after I get my f%#ing leg fixed we'll climb it.  Apparently you go higher and it's not as brutal as Huayna Picchu. More info here.

One last pic. Terri at the top of Huayna Picchu.