I still cannot believe we got to go to Machu Picchu!
What a day it was - it started out cloudy and a bit rainy though.
This dog thought he might join us for our trek up to Machu Picchu but we told him he couldn't come. We waited here for a bit, and there was some confusion with the driver, who couldn't find us for some reason. But eventually he DID find us. And he drove us ALL the way to Ollantaytambo, which was a source of amusement for us at first. We were pretty sure he was going to drive us to the outskirts of town where we would pick up a bus. And maybe that was supposed to happen but couldn't happen because he was late picking us up? At any rate, he drove us all the way to Ollantaytambo, which was so unexpected, that Todd and I were texting each other, wondering if we had been kidnapped lol.
We were not kidnapped, fortunately, but this guy was the CRAZIEST driver ever. Like I'm not kidding, throw every crazy thing about driving into a scenario and we went through it. The guy was on his phone the whole time, dipping and driving left and right because the roads were a total mess with potholes and speed bumps. Then it started raining and the windows were all fogged up, so he was trying to fidget with the air conditioning but it wasn't working right. Then there were these winding roads where he was simply driving in the oncoming traffic lane - we had no idea if anyone was coming from the other direction! AND we came upon several rock slides! This one took up almost the entire road!
We arrived safe and sound in Ollantaytambo, and it was raining pretty hard. This is a tributary to the Urubamba River and believe it or not, we are in the headwaters of the Amazon River basin here!
In Ollantaytambo, we boarded the Peru Rail Vistadome train on our way to Aguas Calientes.
This is a great little train ride. They serve drinks and snacks which are free (if you want alcohol, it costs more but it was morning, so no thanks!)
However... it WAS raining, and this was about all we could see out the windows.
There is a cool "front row" to the train which you can see out of - but again, it was raining so it wasn't the best view.
The Urubamba River was flowing pretty good in some spots.
You pass by a few archaeological ruins with the visible terraces. I mean. If you can see them.
This particular ruin is called Choquesuysuy. The name is Quechuan and translates to "gold washing." You can see the Quetzal waterfall on the left - there are a lot of fountains here and many believe this was a site of ritualistic purification, as well as a big agricultural site (which is what the terraces are for).
It was still raining a bit when we got to Aguas Calientes. Look at all of those rocks in the Urubamba! (Also, where are these people going??)
It was still raining a bit when our train pulled in to Aguas Calientes. The train station has some beautiful landscaping! So green and lush, and very unlike the last week that we've spent in Peru!
There are ladies outside of the train station selling little plastic rain jackets that you can buy for relatively cheap. We had rain gear on, but we also had a backpack that was getting drenched. Naturally, I picked a purple one for BTS! We thought we looked pretty cool! 😎
We were met at the train station by a guy who's name I did not get, but was our point person in Aguas Calientes. He recommended we get some breakfast - and we had a yummy meal at Mesa 7!
After breakfast, we walked around the town which was SUPER cute. They have a great little main square known as Plaza Manco Capac with a big statue of Machu Picchu Pueblo in the center. Machu Picchu Pueblo is another name for this town.
We dipped into the nearby Parroquia Virgen del Carmen - that's a lotta gold!
This is the church from the outside. It's so cute!
This little town has a really cool vibe and an interesting history. It was formed back in the early 1900s as they were building the railway between Santa Ana and Cusco. This was before they had discovered the ruins of Machu Picchu. It was originally just a sort of camping spot for the railway workers, but once Machu Picchu was discovered, they built the train station here - and that was the first permanent building in the town.
Look! A fake condor!
Todd and I did not struggle as much here because the altitude is only 6,690 feet. We had fun walking around this cute little town!
This is looking down one of the streets in Aguas Calientes, but I really took the picture for my friend Sara and my Aunt Sara because I spotted their name on this sign!
I'm a weirdo about passport stamps, and anytime I can get a cool one, I'll pay for it. Here, I was getting a Machu Picchu passport stamp to go along with my new stamp from the Uros Islands! Many countries aren't stamping passports anymore, so why not get one?
We met up again with our guide who told us that we needed to get in line in order to board our bus to Machu Picchu. You can see here that it's still raining! The longest line is one for future boardings, but once it hits a certain time, for example, the noon bus line forms, so you move over to another line.
I just really thought these little froggy city garbage cans were so cute!
Everything was so lush and green here - even this bridge!
On your way up to Machu Picchu on the bus, you can see Huayna Picchu, which is another ruin you can hike up to with excellent views of Machu Picchu.
And then... you see it for the first time. Machu Picchu!
And by the time we met up with Samuel, our new guide for Machu Picchu, and made our way to the famous agricultural terraces, the sunshine had come out and it was a beautiful day!
Our guide Samuel was incredible. Probably the best guide we had the entire trip, and we had a lot of great ones. He knew the answer to almost every question we asked! He told us all about how Machu Picchu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911, and how it didn't really look like this. He said that over the years, they slowly pieced together the ruins to make it look like what they believe it had looked like back in the 1500s.
That was... until UNESCO came in around 1983 and made it a World Heritage Site, which forced them to stop the rebuild. But look at these views!
Samuel took a few great photos of Todd and I at the amazing Machu Picchu!
LOOK at this place! I kept saying how it was even more beautiful and more jaw dropping in person - photos definitely do not do it justice.
This is our Batman photo, looking down on the city of Machu Picchu. Funny story about that- no one really knows what the city was called during the Incan Empire. The mountain behind where we are standing is known as Machu Picchu, which translates to "old mountain" (or maybe more like "old summit").
Machu Picchu sits about 1,300 feet above the Urubamba River, which, if you squint, you can see in the valley floor above. The terraces here are really something - they were designed to grow crops since the side of the mountain was entirely too rocky to grow anything meaningful. They used rocks to level out the terraces before adding gravel, dirt and topsoil that would help grow the crops. These terraces also had a very good drainage system which was important because this area gets a LOT of rain during the rainy season.
If you look at the bottom left and bottom center of the above photo, you can see part of Machu Picchu is still in ruins. This is because the excavating and rebuilding team did not get to this section before UNESCO declared it a World Heritage Site. So this is pretty much how Hiram Bingham would have found Machu Picchu back in 1911.
Machu Picchu was a royal residence for the Inca Emperors and their families, mainly as a retreat from the city of Cusco. It was originally built during the reign of Pachacuti, and was also considered to be an astronomy observatory, as well as a site for Incan rituals.
Sorry, just had to share one more picture of this!
One of the coolest things I learned at Machu Picchu was about how this area was NOT discovered by the Spanish when they conquered the Incas. Our guide Samuel told us that the Incas used Inti Punku or the “Sun Gate” as the main entrance - which is in that little divot in the mountain in the above picture. When they learned that the Spanish were invading, they burned and destroyed all of the trails leading to this community, including the Inca Trail that led through the Sun Gate. The terrain and forest also made it very difficult for the Spanish to maneuver their forces through here.
There are other theories that Machu Picchu was abandoned due to disease (smallpox), change of leadership or overgrowth of population which made the area unsustainable. Although they had the terraces and access to fresh water, there would have been a tipping point eventually.
No one really knows WHAT Machu Picchu looked like - there are no maps or written records of anything from the days of the Inca here. So when Samuel showed us a picture of what it might have looked like, he reminded us that no one really knows.
Ok literally my favorite thing that I learned - this is a scarlet begonia, growing out of the side of one of the terraces. The Incas would know that the growing season had begun when they spotted these flowers, and in contrast, also knew when it was time to harvest when the begonia began to wilt.
Selfie with Samuel!
It's hard to grasp just how steep the terraces are at Machu Picchu. Here they grew corn, potatoes and other tubers, quinoa, coca leaf and root vegetables.
The Inca also had a system set up that funneled the water from nearby springs into the city for better health and hygiene. From here, it entered the city and flowed through a series of stone fountains where people could collect the water for drinking. In addition, they had a system where they collected rooftop rain water and distributed it to the terraces for the crops. And look- you can see these are still working after all these years!
We next made our way over to the royal residence. Ahead, you can see the rounded Temple of the Sun, which faces east so that the sun comes in through the window openings very precisely on the solstices which would have lit up an altar that existed inside the building. Beneath it, there was a tomb, in which many believe Pachacuti was buried.
One important thing to note about the stones here- you'll notice there is no mortar, no glue, no cement of any type. The ashlar style of stone construction cut the stones to perfectly fit each other, which did not require any kind of mortar. This design made it somewhat earthquake proof as well (there are a couple of faults in this area.
Just me, at Machu Picchu.
Samuel took us to the emperor's room next - here we have two kings in a king's room. Behind them (where the water was still standing from the earlier rain) was where the emperor's slept (namely, Pachacuti).
The emperor also had his very own throne room! Ahem... that is, of course, a bathroom. There was a drainage system here designed to keep it more sanitary, which drained out and away from the city and it's freshwater aqueduct.
I thought these were really cool - these are like little storage shelves used for displaying or for storing things like plates, blankets, etc. I was like, "oh these are great bookshelves!" but the Inca didn't have any kind of writing system so no... they were not bookshelves.
We took a stop into the royal kitchen where Todd promised to whip up some pancakes and bacon.
And here we are with the Lone Tree! This tree was left here to remind people that this place was actually quite overgrown when Bingham found it in 1911.
On this particular day, we were not up above the clouds but we were close!
We followed Samuel to the other side of the city, past the main square area for some more amazing views.
Looking north through Machu Picchu - it's so incredible.
Sometimes you see llamas eating grass here on the main square, but we didn't see any today. Instead, what we see is something covering the remains of an obelisk or a monolith. In 1978, to create a landing pad for King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia's helicopter, the government ordered that the monolith be removed. As they were removing it, it was damaged beyond repair, so they decided to bury it here (and cover it).
Our next stop was the residential area where the regular people lived.
The roofs in Inca architecture were extremely sloped due to the excessive amount of rain they get every year. Their trapezoid shape also helped stabilize the structure during earthquakes.
One of our last stops on our tour was the Temple of the Condor. This cave was used for rituals and has rock carved in the shape of a condor - the larger granite blocks are the wings, with the face and beak of the condor on the ground.
This is the face/beak of the condor - maybe you just need to use your imagination!
What a view! What a day!
Samuel walked us back through the terraces to get to the main entrance of Machu Picchu. But not before taking one last picture of Todd and I at one of the 7 modern wonders of the world.
We thanked Samuel profusely (please, use Yapa Explorers if you want an amazing experience at Machu Picchu!) and then made our way to the line to get back on the bus down to Aguas Calientes. These rocky and winding roads are rough on these bus tires!
Remember to take your motion sickness meds if you are heading up to or down from Machu Picchu! To be honest, it wasn't too bad. Just look out the window when you're in the switchbacks!
Back down in Aguas Calientes, the sun was still out and the stream was really flowing! But how beautiful is this?
We goofed off and took some pictures on our way to the train station, since we had a little time to spare.
But how do we get to the train station? For the record, it's not super intuitive... but you can follow the signs through the market!
At the train station, we got in line for our train right next to this wall of information about the Andean trilogy (the best description I have seen yet) - it represents three sacred animals symbolizing the spiritual connection between the heavens, earth and underworld in Andean culture. The condor represents the spiritual realm, symbolizing wisdom and connection to the divine. The puma represents the earthly realm, symbolizing strength and power. The snake represents the underworld, symbolizing transformation and rebirth.
We boarded the train and we were finally able to see the Urubamba River and the surrounding terrain through clear windows, without rain.
A few months after we were here on this train, there was an accident and one of these workers died (with many people injured on the train). Maybe we need to build these workers a walkway parallel to the tracks!
Knowing that we had this crazy drive back to Cusco, Todd and I felt it was appropriate to have a couple of beers on the train back to Ollantaytambo from Aguas Calientes. We sat at a table from this cute younger couple named Maggie and Turner, who were from (waves hands wildly) everywhere in the US. They were from LA, went to the University of Wisconsin, had lived in Austin, she had a sister who went to Mizzou, and he had a sister who had gone to school in the Boston area. They were super cool!
At one point, Maggie thought we needed a photo of us with our anti-anxiety beers!
I managed to get only one picture of our new friends, Maggie and Turner as I was taking a picture of the Urubamba River at dusk and they happened to be in the window reflection.
The very good news was that we survived the drive back to Cusco from Ollantaytambo. It was a much tamer drive! Back in Cusco, we swung into a cute little pizza place for some pizza and wine to celebrate a fantastic day.
Tomorrow, we are on our way back to Lima! Until next time, Machu Picchu!
