After the last harrowing adventure, I decided to take a break from blood-sucking bats and angry mobs, and go do something a little more touristy. In fact, the next stop for me was the single most touristed location in all of South America: Machu Pichu. Tyler had decided against accompanying me, as he’d “already been there” (spoken in a bored tone accompanied by a pretentious eye-roll.) Fine then, I’d battle the hordes of Eddie Bauer khaki-panted tour groups on my own.There are 3 distinct types of visitors to Machu Pichu. In the first group are the casual travelers, on one of the month-long trips they managed to steal by saving up vacation time or squeezing in a trip between semesters at college. They only have time for the highlights, are awed and excited by everything they see, and are generally just happy to be there. The second consists of the two-week-vacationers usually on their one and only trip outside of the United States, except for their previous visit to Europe which doesn’t count as “travel” for much the same reason that badminton doesn’t count as a “sport” (just kidding). The third are the hardcore travelers who sneer and roll their eyes pretentiously at other people’s European travel experience and won’t get out of bed for any trip less than 6 months. The two-weekers ask stupid questions of their tour guides like “Why do you people make mummies anyway?” and really “got into the whole Inca spiritual vibe” during their short visit, the hardcore travelers sigh and act put out by having to go and see such a “tourist trap” and talk about how no one knew Machu Pichu existed 5 years ago except them, and the casual travelers just enjoy their 4-day trek and rush around taking photos of the tight-fitting masonry and marveling at how the Incas had managed such a feat. Usually in Eddie Bauer moisture-wicking no-wrinkle zip-off-into-shorts khaki pants.

Originally, we had planned to end our Choquiquirao trek in Machu Pichu after about 8-10 days hiking through the Andes. As the post written previously about that trek explained, the route was changed to shorten the trip mainly so we could return to Cusco in time for the rafting expedition (a fact which turned out to be in my Giardia-and-Salmonella-wracked favor). So now, I sat in Cusco debating the various methods of travel designed to get one to the actual site of Machu Pichu.

Because I’m in a listing mood, there are again three basic ways of getting to Machu Pichu. The first (and easiest) is the train. The ride takes only a few hours, but even the cheapest class of service is quite expensive. The second is the Inca trail method. In order to hike the Inca Trail, one must go with a guided tour, and pay exorbitant fees for the service of having most of your gear carried for you and all meals provided for the 3-5 day trek. The third method is the one that I wanted to take, which is to walk to the site.

No secret outside the location of the Lost City of Gold is more closely guarded in Peru than detailed information about how one can walk to Machu Pichu without paying the train fees. At least, that’s how it seemed to me, having spent almost a week in Cusco both recuperating from the last vestiges of Giardomonella (as I’ve taken to calling the combo) and the raft trip without finding any info whatsoever. I’d spoken to a number of different travelers elsewhere who knew someone who had, or had spoken to someone who told them how, etc., but had yet to actually encounter any firsthand specific info on the route. So, having passed 4 days already taking care of various chores and wasting time in Cusco, I decided to simply take the train in the interest of time.

I had just returned to my hostel after purchasing the cheapest tickets possible (which required that I catch a bus to a town halfway to Machu Pichu and pick up the train from there), when I happened to start a conversation with some Irish girls staying there about Machu Pichu and my plans. When I mentioned that I had been looking for the walking route, they directed me to the guest book at the hostel, which contained a recent entry detailing everything about how to do it, from bus times to walking distances, crude maps and all. Great.

My scheduled time to meet the train in Ollantaytambo (just give the pronunciation a try on that one) was at 9:00 at night, so I caught a bus there in the early afternoon to spend some time looking around. Finally, in the dark, I stood at the closed chain link gates that kept people off the platform with a large group of people waiting. At 9ish, the train rolled in and they opened the gates for all of us to flood on. At 11:15, we arrived in Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the mountain on which Machu Pichu sits. I, thinking I was so much smarter than everyone else, instead of checking the hostels right near the tracks decided to go much further up the one main street that winds up a hill, lined with hotels and hostels, figuring they would be cheaper the further away from the platform one went. What I didn’t realize was that the other end of the street eventually wound up at the hot springs themselves (aguas calientes meaning “hot waters” in Spanish), and thus the further one went the pricier lodging became. Once I realized this, it was already too late as most everything even remotely approaching my price range (I wanted to pay less than 10 soles, or 3$, they wanted to charge no less than 30$) was now full. Facing the prospect of either paying 50$+ at a nice hotel that may have a room left or walking out into the jungle and sleeping under a log (towards which I was leaning rather than a hefty room rate), I eventually wound up talking to a young Peruvian girl who was trying to entice me to come and drink at the bar she worked in. Asking about cheap lodging, she directed me across the river, to the part of town where the locals lived.

I finally found a hostel across the river within my price range. I had to sleep on a mattress on the floor in the lobby, but the price is what counts. By that time it was 1:00 or so anyway, and I intended to leave town to head up to the ruins at 4:00, so it wasn’t as if I would be using a room much anyway.

At 3:45 I was angry and confused when an incessant beeping woke me up. Soon realizing it was my alarm, I turned it off and decided that Machu Pichu simply wasn’t worth it. Higher brain functions luckily booted up before I fell back asleep and were sufficient to drag me out of bed to get moving. It was freezing cold, so I set out with my long underwear and stocking cap on, my headlamp lighting the streets as I headed out of town in the direction of the steps leading up the mountain to the ruins themselves.

The hike takes about an hour, climbing essentially straight up an endless series of steps. Along the way I passed other nutjobs also trying to arrive at the top before the sun came up, most panting in the high altitude and extreme exertion. I arrived at the top at 5:15 or so, 45 minutes before the park actually opens and they let people in. No one told me that.

At 6:00, the gates opened and people rushed in to grab spots quickly before the sun, threatening with every passing minute to break over the ridge to the east and catch us in a non-perfect position to view its dawning majesty. It was like the day after Thanksgiving at the mall or something, everyone running and pushing to get to any place better than the paved walkway in. I believe I may have pushed an old lady down, but I can’t really remember in the red haze of bloodlust. So, arriving breathless at what I deemed to be a fairly decent position, far away from everyone else, I proceed to sit and hurriedly prepare my cold instant coffee and tear open my pack of biscuits so I could be sitting serenely enjoying my breakfast when the sun finally crested the ridge. Serenely I waited, slowly crunching my biscuits and sipping ice cold coffee, and waited, and waited. Turns out the sun doesn’t actually poke its stupid little face up over the mountains until 7, 7:15, so all of us sat there for an hour holding our breath. But boy howdy, was it worth it. Well, actually I don’t really think so, but after waiting an hour in the cold with a crappy coffeesicle and a whole pack of biscuits gurgling away in my gut, I choose to remember it as such. Decide for yourself:

The next few hours proved quite enjoyable, as aside from the hundred or so people who’d managed to drag themselves up to the ruins so early, I had the place to myself. In a site of that size, even a hundred people become scarce, and I wandered around virtually alone except for a few random encounters with others. I had fully expected to be completely disappointed by Machu Pichu. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to discover myself truly blown away. The ruins themselves are interesting, but the location makes it spectacular. High up on a ridge, the site looks hundreds of meters down on the crashing Urabamba river (which those of you with a knack for remembering random Quechua words read in passing only once will recall is the same river we earlier rafted down, albeit much further downstream). The main site starts up on a high hill and descends down onto the large, flat saddle of the ridge, the whole area overlooked by the towering spire of Huayna Pichu. The latter is climbable, via a 20-45 minute climb up narrow stairs hewn into the rock.

At 10:00 or so, I decided it was time to make that climb to the top of Huayna Pichu. 20 minutes later I stood on the top, exploring the small set of ruins that sits up there. Feeling a bit hungry, I sat on the edge of a sheer rock wall and ate my lunch, looking down on the main ruins.

From my vantage point on high, I could see the road winding back and forth up the mountain from Aguas Calientes, and the long line of buses climbing it. The standard tour (for two-weekers) begins in Cusco with the early morning train, which is met by buses which then ferry tourists up to the site. They arrive in droves at around 11, a site I could see from my perch far above. Flooding into the ruins by the main gate came thousands of people, soon occupying every inch of the site. After snapping countless photos and following their tour guides around for 3 hours, they begin their mass exodus around 2 to catch their buses and later the train back to Cusco. By 3, the place is quiet again, albeit still much fuller than before the groups arrived. Knowing the schedule in advance, I stayed up on Huayna Pichu until 1:45 or so before descending again. Even then, I caught the tail end of the rush, and had to wait somewhat impatiently for groups to slowly work their way through the site as the tight spaces didn’t leave me any passing room. At least I had the distinct pleasure of hearing multiple different tour guides describing the same things, each giving a completely different account of the history and purpose of any given room or object. Standing by a small stone alcove for any length of time, one would hear descriptions of its purpose ranging from shrine to the jaguar god to outhouse.

So, after spending a few more hours wandering around and taking a few more photos, I finally called it a day and returned to Aguas Calientes. I spent the night at the same hostel, and caught the train the next day back to Ollantaytambo and a bus from there to Cusco. To end, here are a few more shots of Machu Pichu and some long-haired hippy.

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