Machu Picchu

I am not a morning person, but I did my best faking it today!  :)  Our alarm went off at 4:45am, and I dragged Gavin out of bed so we could go catch an early bus to see the sunrise at Machu Picchu.  Gringo Bills is evidently used to people getting up for the early bus, as they start their breakfast at 5am.  We started nibbling at the continental breakfast sitting on the counter, but then someone brought us fresh fruit and juice and offered to make us scrambled eggs!  At FIVE AM!  Best hotel breakfast ever, or at least it felt like it this morning.  :)

When we got to the bus station, we saw we were not the only ones who had the idea to get on the early bus...  The line was about TWO BLOCKS long!  Luckily, the bus service had a plan for this, as there were several buses leaving at the same time; we got on one pretty quickly.

After about a 20 minute bus ride on the narrow, zig zagging road up to Machu Picchu, we arrived!  Tons of guides competed for our business.  I had actually intended to hire a private guide, but we unfortunately didn't have enough sols, and we definitely didn't want to get herded around with a group.  So, armed with Lonely Planet, we explored on our own.  We decided to start with Cerro Machu Picchu, a climb of Machu Picchu mountain to overlook the ruins, but we had bought the wrong kind of ticket, and they wouldn't allow us to go up!  I was really disappointed, as I had been looking forward to that climb.  Instead, we walked to the Sun Gate, which is the entrance to Machu Picchu from the Inca Trail; we got to see several people arriving after having just completed the 5-day Inca Trail trek.

Gavin and I at Machu Picchu!

 I can see why it is called the Sun Gate; as we admired the lovely view of the Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate, a ray of the sun that had just risen over the mountaintops shown down on Machu Picchu!  The ruins, surrounded on all sides by mountains, was an incredible sight! That view alone made the early rising worth it.  :)  After that, we headed back down to the ruins to try to find more picture opportunities.  We found some llamas munching the grass on the Inca terraces, so we got pictures of them; I swear they were posing for us.  :)  We also headed toward the Inca Bridge to get a view of the back of Machu Picchu, then we joined the herds of tourists and tour groups that were now arriving in walking through the ruins.  Lonely Planet and what we could sneak hearing from other tour guides told us most of what we wanted to know.

The view of Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate.

A llama poses for us.  :)

Obligatory yoga-in-a-beautiful-place photo.  This is the back side of Machu Picchu.  Notice how my Peruvian Hammer Pants (t.m.) allow for full freedom of movement.  :)

A closer view of the front of Machu Picchu.

Gavin and I at Machu Picchu.  :)

 The most well-preserved buildings were the temples, which were also the most well built; blocks fit together completely tight without mortar, though not on the grand scale of Sacsayhuaman.  Other buildings, like the residential area, were not as well put together, and there was brand new modern mortar holding them together.

Mortarless Inca brick work.

 After wandering around a bit more, we decided to head back to Aguas Calientes.  It was still rather early, around 11am, so we had plenty of time to do some other activity until we had to catch our train at 5pm.  We wanted to go to Santa Teresa to try out the really nice hot springs in the area, but the only way to get there is by train, and there is only ONE train from Aguas Calientes to Santa Teresa, and the return trip wouldn't get us back in time to catch our train back to Cusco.  So we had lunch in another uninspiring tourist restaurant while we decided what to do.

Putucusi, TAKE TWO.  :)

Since I already described the many ways we could die on the Putucusi hike in my last post, I won't write about them again here.  We got up to the point we had stopped yesterday without event, and then continued our climb.  The climb from that point was all TALL stairs, most of them just below knee height and very narrow, only about 1.5 feet across.  And most of these stairs, if you happen to miss a step, you could possibly have a long tumble to the bottom of the mountain...  There was no forest or tress up this high, mostly just grass and other soft plants that will not support weight if one happens to fall.  :)  The lack of trees also meant this part of the climb was BEASTLY hot in the afternoon sun.  This part was pretty mentally challenging as well; we kept thinking we were almost to the top, but then we would get over a rise and see there was more to go...

But WE MADE IT!  And what an incredible view!  We could see the front side of Machu Picchu, plus the snow-capped mountains behind it!  I yelled and whooped and made Gavin take a picture of me by the rainbow flag at the top.  :)  We rested and enjoyed the view for about fifteen minutes, then headed back down.

The view of Machu Picchu, the Andes Mountains and the zig zag road to get up to Machu Picchu, as viewed from the top of the Putucusi trail.

Triumphant finish.  :)  The rainbow flag when flown in Peru is a symbol of the Inca empire.

We look a touch exhausted, no?  :)

Back in Aguas Calientes, we stopped by Gringo Bills to pick up our luggage, and the front desk worker kindly let us take a shower in the shared showers.  We still had a bit of time before catching the train, so we sat at a cafe near the train station and had some more fresh juice (mine was banana pineapple - YUM!).  Then we hopped onto our Vistadome train back to Cuzco.

The train ride back was dark, so no lovely scenery to admire, but the crew had a bit of entertainment for us.  Suddenly a guy dressed up in a colorful bird costume came out and started dancing around the cabin. Afterwards the "crew" put on a looong fashion show, strutting down the aisle like models.  But of course, they were modeling expensive stuff that they wanted everyone to buy later; the stuff they were wearing even still had the tags on it!  :)

Our taxi driver was waiting for us when we arrived at the Poroy station, so we hopped in the taxi and began the 20 minute drive back to Cuzco.  We got ALL the way back to Renacimiento, then Gavin realized he had left is iPad on the train!  We stopped at Renacimiento to use the internet to look up the phone number for the train station, then drove all the way back to the Poroy station!  While I had been checking the internet, Gavin had been looking around the taxi and in his bag with a flashlight, and he realized he had lost his WEDDING RING too!!  (I was more upset about the wedding ring than the iPad!)  So as Gavin tried to call the train station, I looked around in his bag with a flashlight to try to find his ring.  Luckily, I found it within a couple minutes!  We got back to the train station and saw it was closed, but there were still a few workers waiting for their shared van to Cuzco, and a couple guys working at a stall outside the station. One of the people waiting happened to be the guy who had danced around in the bird costume in our train car, and he came right up to us and told us he had found the iPad and filed a report - all we had to do was show our tickets and passports and take him as a witness to the two guys at the outdoor stall, and we got Gavin's iPad back!  What a big sigh of relief!!!

By this time it was around 10:30 at night, and we were both desperately tired and hungry, so we wandered over to the Plaza de Armas to find some food.  We found a place called La Meson on the second floor above the plaza; it was one of the few restaurants still open this late, so we had dinner there.  I ordered Lomo Saltado, a tasty Peruvian dish of pieces of steak spiced and cooked with onions and tomatoes. I was feeling protein starved, so any meat would have probably tasted amazing.  :) Gavin had a nice filet mignon.  Feeling replenished in food but still desperately tired, we dragged ourselves back to Renacimiento and crashed into bed.

What a whirlwind trip of Peru!  Tomorrow take our 30+ hour transit back to the US.