Machu Picchu - Jan 29 - 30, 2008

Days 10 - 11 - Jan 29 - 30, 2008

We took an early train ride from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu. It was about 1.5h and we passed the start of the inca trail. The train followed the Umbamba River and this is a raging river where many people ride the rapids. Class 4 and 5. It just looked extremely dangerous.
The train ride had lots of mountains to see and we could see even more ruins along the side of the tracks. We arrived in Machu Picchu town in the afternoon and we decided to walk around in the rain. We stopped at the local church in the square and admired the artwork before lighting another electronic candle like we did in Cusco.

Next we hiked to the Machu Picchu museum which has lots of information about the history of Machu Picchu and original photos from when Bingham found the site again in 1911. This is where we began to realize that this is not just a lost city, but there was lots of urban planning that occurred. They had an agricultural section and an urban section. Water was transferred via aquaducts from a nearby spring in the mountains. We should be greatful that the Spanish never found Machu Picchu or else it too would have been destroyed.

The following morning we were up at 4am to catch a bus up to the historic site. The bus takes a zig zag route up the mountain. From 6:30am - 8:30am we had a short guided tour of the site and then we had the remainder of the morning to explore the city on our own. We climbed lots of steps and saw so many buildings. 70% of the city was still in tact and only small parts had been restored. We spent over an hour just sitting around and taking in the surroundings. My fear of heights was really tested as most of the steps were steep and uneven. Of course there were no hand rails. We had times where the sky was clear and other times where the clouds/fog would roll in. We just took as many pictures as we could. By 1pm we were back on the bus back down to the town.

We had lunch then started to make the trip back to Cusco. Train back to Ollantaytambo and then bus from there to Cusco. We had heard that the Cusco futbol (soccer) was playing the next night so we asked our tour leader to get us tickets to the game. He made some phone calls and a couple hours later we had tickets. So when we get back we have another free day in Cusco where we can relax after all the climbing we did and enjoy a futbol match.