Mystical Machu Picchu

Take a guess what ruin that is

We started the day very early because we wanted to get to Machu Picchu before the large crowds and during the good light around sunrise. We got to the bus station around 6am and then took one of the constant stream of buses up the switchbacks for about a half hour. At the top, there was a throng of people waiting to get in. We hired a guide and headed into the site. From the entrance to the site, you walk through a jungle path and then, after about 100m, the canopy opens up and you get the first sight of Machu Picchu clinging on the clifftop. It's just a little mystical.

More pictures are in the Peru album.

Our guide hurried us up the side of the hill facing the main ruins because we wanted to get a good view of sunrise as the sun came up over the mountains. It was totally worth getting their early just to see the the dawn of the new day and the golden rays slowly creep across the ancient landscape.

Frankly, it's not only the ruins that are special, it's also the landscape. The river slices the mountains into ribbons of green that are thousands of feet high and near vertical. The vegetation is incredibly lush and tenacious  even growing on vertical granite cliffs. Most of the plants were what we think of in North America as house plants, only bigger that they were in their natural environment. Bromeliads were everywhere, in the nooks of trees or in crevices in the rock. Air plants and moss were hanging from every conceivable surface, nourished by the mist that often invades the ancient sanctuary.

We had a tour of the main ruins, where our guide showed us the sights. He was very incensed that Yale still had a lot of the Machu Picchu artifacts from Henry Bingham's excavations and Catherine had to bite her tongue  The ruins have a number of interesting points. There is a calendar stone that marks the time between the solstices like a sundial. There is a single round building with a single window, which on the winter solstice lights a special point. There is a temple of the condor where offerings were made to the gods. People had left money and coca candy, which our guide didn't like because it meant that people weren't understanding the culture. If you want to do it right, you need to leave coca leaves or chica. There was also a house for the king, which including a bathroom and gigantic pestles for grinding medicinal herbs that doubled as a star observatory by filling them with water and looking at the reflection. There are a number of other sites, but frankly, you should just go and see them for yourself.

We didn't buy our ticket in time to go up Wayna Picchu  the mountain behind the ruin, because they only let a couple of hundred people up each day. However, we did opt to climb the larger Machu Picchu mountain. It was a long 1.5 hour climb up continuous stone steps, but the view at the top was worth it. You can see Machu Picchu in its entirety and its place in context of the large hills that surround it. It's one of those sights, like the Grand Canyon, that pictures don't do justice.

The last thing we saw before heading back for the bus was the Inca bridge. This is a short walk from the main ruins. You follow a path until you reach a completely sheer face with a narrow path built up a little ways in stonework. There is a little gap and then more stonework. Between these two spots, is a bridge. It's a weird bridge. I don't know why they didn't just make a little causeway and fill in the whole thing. You can't go on the bridge because it is too narrow and unstable. In fact, on the other side, you can see the path continue in a ribbon of green that looked like it was only a foot or two wide.

Exhausted, we grabbed the bus to Aguas Calientes then picked up our gear from the hostel. Then we grabbed the train back to Ollantaytambo where we picked up the laundry that we had left at the hostel there. When I got there, even though they had almost two days to do it, it was in a pile all wrinkled, some of the stuff was still on the line, and our laundry bag was hidden under a bunch of sheets. After scrambling around trying to make sure I had everything, I reconnected with Catherine and we grabbed a combi to Cuzco.

After settling into the hotel, we went out for dinner at Pacha Pappa. It's an outdoor patio and on weekends, they have a harp player adding to the ambiance. I had a fantastic cocktail of pisco, maracuya (unripe passion fruit), ginger and amaretto, along with a pork stew cooked in a clay pot that was scrumptious  Catherine had pollo de gallina, which, it turns out, is a thick sauce made from cheese and stale bread. Ooops.