Machu Picchu, or as it is called sometimes, the Lost City of the Incas, was built in the 15 century at the height of the Inca Empire, likely as an estate of the Inca emperor Pachacuti. It was abandoned about one hundred year later. It was never found by the Spanish and it was rediscover for the modern world in 1911. The year 2011 was marketed by Peru as the 100th anniversary of its rediscovery. It was our second new wonder of the world to visit on our South American trip,
I like good photographic light in beautiful places, both to enjoy that special moment while I am there and also give myself an opportunity to capture it so I can try to relive it through my photographs later. So we made an attempt to get to Machu Picchu as early as possible. To accomplish that from Machu Picchu Pueblo/Aguas Calientes, one has to get up around 5am to catch a bus leaving shortly thereafter. Another option was to get up one hour and a half earlier to walk up some 3 miles to the ruins with a flash light. Given my freshly sprained ankle, the former was a much more viable alternative.
The line was already long when we got to the bus stop. Fortunately, they were ready for the hordes of tourists and buses arrived one after another. It was about a 20 minute ride up a series of switchbacks on Carretera Hiram Bingham, a dirt road named after the Yale professor who discovered Machu Picchu, at least for the modern world, a hundred years ago. The road is cut into the cloud forest covered mountain side. At the end of it, a long awaited moment of finally seeing the ruins had to wait a bit more. Yet another line formed in front of the entrance station.
After we finally got in, we chose to head for an area near the Watchman's Hut first to have a view of the entire site from above. The sun was just above the mountains, though well past the sunrise, and it was a special sight indeed. I am not sure where I had seen a photo of Machu Picchu the first time. Perhaps it was in a Czech edition of the ten volume History of Art by Jose Pijoan, that I remember browsing through a lot when I was a teenager. It would seem I did not look just for the type of pictures a teenager might look for and some others left a mark too.
The ruins themselves, as impressive as they may be, are a distant second to the magnificient setting of the site itself. Steep mountain sides dropping some 2000 ft to the Urubamba river, clouds often enveloping the surrounding mountains above, with still higher snow capped peaks in the distance, the backdrop of Huayna Picchu on the other side of the ruins, are a sight that will thrill the most dispassionate soul, a phrase that I picked up from Gerry Roach's book, "Colorado Fourteeners, From Hikes to Climbs", and that so often comes to my mind.
A few clouds blocked off the sunshine for a while and we started searching for a different subject than the surrounding scenery. The subject came to us. A small herd of llamas was grazing on a meadow between the ruins. Irina took to them with suspicion initially, but then they became friendly. She almost got trampled when the llamas got startled at one point. She would, according to her own words, smell like a llama since then, and characterized llamas as snails. I had to give it to her. They may look photogenic at first, but they are seriously out of proportion in every picture I took of them.
After the sun came out again, we spend some more time photographing, and then went back down to the entrance to meet our guide. He walked us through the ruins, offering an interesting description of various parts of it. The sky got cloudy and the wind started to blow. Gradually, the clouds lowered occasionally obscuring the summit of Huyana Picchu. The rain drops started to fall shortly after. We took shelter inside one of the temples for a while. The rain subsided and then got heavier still. We left the site in a downpour around 2pm and boarded a bus that took us back down to Machu Picchu Pueblo.
The entire town was without electricity. Most of the restaurants were closed. It was still raining and it was relatively chilly. We walked around, had coffee in one of the few places offering it, and eventually managed to have what amounted to an early dinner. We picked up our luggage at the hotel and headed to the train station. There were crowds of people waiting to board their train in the train station and it was an interesting scene when it got dark outside and only a few candles illuminated the hall. The boarding took place in the dark too. It was a lot more cheerful on board the train again. The staff of Peru Rail put on a fashion show walking up and down the car as if on a catwalk. They pitched alpaca sweaters and other clothing and it was a lot of fun to watch. Javier waited for us in Ollantaytambo and took us back tu Cuzco. It was a great day and more were to come.
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