Chasing Summer –

January 2nd

Machu Picchu is so amazing, and I took so many pictures that it deserves its own post.

I also visited Machu Picchu 22 years ago, and while my memories might be cloudy, one thing that I remember very clearly was walking up and down the steep and dangerous stairs. I can distinctly recall thinking that it was good that my dad never wanted to come here because anyone with any height issues would have problems. It didn’t seem that way at all this time, so either I did a different route and/or they have really made it safer for visitors since I was last here.

When going to Machu Picchu, our group needed to prepurchase tickets to the site, which required us to choose a circuit to walk. There are three circuits, and circuit 2 is the most popular one since it covers 90% of the site. If we wanted to do the extra hike up Hauyna Picchu (Young Peak), we would need to buy a circuit 3 pass.

I had booked through an agent to organize the transportation and the pass. Circuit 2 tickets cost 152 soles.

Our next choice was how to get up to Machu Picchu from Aguas Caliente. There are two choices: walk up or shuttle bus. The hike up is 4km and takes about 90 minutes. The shuttle bus is 12 soles and takes 15 minutes. We chose the shuttle bus. Some other people also walk the last 13 km of the Inca Trail to come up over the mountain and through the sun gate.

The passes have timed entrances so that the 5000 tourists who visit daily are on a staggered entry. Busses begin running at 5 am. Our tickets were for 7 am, and that meant that we needed to catch a shuttle bus from town to arrive sometime between 7 and 8. There were lines of people waiting for their time slots but we chose to go at 7 am and didn’t need to wait in line at all as all the other 7:00 people had already gone up.

Our guide, Samuel, was correct, and it had stopped raining by 6 am. The road up to Machu Picchu is a switchback road that the busses seemed to fly up and down. If I had to drive it, we would have gone a lot slower.

When we reached the top there was a hotel (very expensive) and also a toilet area. Once we entered the park there were no facilities and our walk was planned for three hours, so we paid the 2 soles to go.

We also paid for a private guide for ourselves. At first, we weren’t too keen on having a guide, but the information that he shared made it worthwhile. So, with our guide, the four of us made our way into the ruins.

The morning was still hanging onto some of the fog, making it that much more magical and otherworldly. When entering, we first came to a set of homes with reconstructed roofs where farmers likely once lived.

Here we could also see the irrigation channels that ran from the mountains to the settlement.

Climbing further upward past grazing alpacas we ascended to a series of platforms that overlook the site and eventually joined up with the Inca Trail, the ancient walkway, that led to the estate from Cusco.

The weather actually made it even better with the fog rolling in and out of the valley,  and the overcast skies made the colors pop.  We did have a short period of sun, and it was almost unbearably humid in that short time.

We walked in through the same gate as the lost Incas to see the homes and temples that had been built.

Every home had a toilet/wash area beside their homes where drainage holes are found.

There is a definite divide between where the upper-class lived and the workers. It follows a natural fault in the mountains.

The site has four main attractions: the Sun Temple, the Temple of Three Windows, the Temple of the Condor, and Intihuatana (a type of astronomical clock that was closed for restoration).

The terraces were used for crop cultivation, but there was also a smaller garden near the upper-class homes that had some fruit trees. The area is also home to many orchids and several types of birds and mammals.

Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the New Seven Wonders of the World and is in constant maintenance.

Machu Picchu is in the saddle between mountain peaks and offers excellent views of the Andes range including these snowcapped mountains.

We spent about three hours walking around and saw pretty much everything we could. After the guided tour was done we could have reentered our circuit one more time with our tickets but chose to go get lunch instead.