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John and Lynnette's fun trip

Peru 5 - Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu - The 'Lost' Inca City, and Wonder of the World

So, up very early, and off to catch the train for our visit to the famous Machu Picchu, and an overnight stay in nearby Aguas Caliente (the village which serves as a transit station for buses up the mountain to the entry). Those of you who know a bit of Spanish will know that Aguas Caliente means Hot Water (or Hot Springs in this case).

There are three trains which go to Macchu Picchu every day. The 6.00am train is for backpackers, and isn't very comfortable, and is often crowded. The journey in this train is also very slow - taking almost 6 hours to get there.

The 7.00am train is more comfortable, has 'panoramic' windows offering good views of the mountains and scenery on the way there, and offers breakfast on board, served by uniformed staff. This train takes only 4 hours to get there, and passes the back-packers train which waitds in a siding. In addition, because it is cold in the morning, (some cars we passed had ice on their windows), the staff issue travellers with alpaca blankets to keep them warm.

The third train is called 'The Hiram Bingham' after the American professor who 'rediscovered' Machu Picchu in 1911, and promptly stole many of the artifacts and treasures, which now reside in the Yale University Museum. This train is a first class train, offering gourmet food and excellent service, but at a whopping price. It leaves at 8.00am but gets to Machu Picchu first.

We had opted for the middle train.

The train set off promptly at 7am. After going about 1 kilometer, the train abruptly stopped, and reversed. Then off it went again, for another kilimoter, then stopped and reversed again. It took us a little while to work out that the train was not going back along the same track, but was zig-zagging up the mountain. Soon it had completed it's manoevering, and off it went at a fairly modest speed, on it's 4 hour journey.

The views through the windows of the glaciers were excellent.

Though the journey seemed endless at times, it was interesting, and as the train was pretty full, we son got talking to those sitting in the neighbouring seats.

Soon enough we passed the backpackers train, and we were soon passed in turn by the 'Hiram Bingham'. We arrived at the train station in Agues Caliente around 10.45am.
Panorama

We were met at the station by a man waving our names on a placard - he was there to take our bags to our hotel, as we had been instructed to waste no time doing this ourselves, but to head off to the bus station a short walk away to board the bus for the last leg of the journey up the mountain to the city.

After to almost 30 miniute drive up he steeply winding road, we were there!

Using our Tourist Pass once more, we passed through the entry gate, to meet up with our guide for the day, a male version of the infamous Jenni, named Hector.

Hector was very knowledgeable, but he resembled Jenni in his desire to stick to a schedule, so he quickly herded his group altogether, gave us a quick lecture on how we had to stick together, and not to stop for pictures, unless he told us we had time to do so!

So we started climbing the steps to one of the best view points, from which we could see the city of Machu Picchu, the mountain behind it (also called Machu Picchu, meaning Old Mountain) and the mountain in front of it, called Wayna Picchu, or Young Mountain.

Machu Picchu bills itself as a Wonder of the World, and it truly is. Maybe not quite on par with the temples at Anghor Wat in Cambodia, but not far off. This town was built on a mountain top, with natural stone thsat had to be hauled 100 kilometres from where they were quarried, and then pulled up the moutain. It is an incredible feat, made more so when you realise it was built in the early 1500's, and took over 50 years to complete.

The biggest problem we had was the altitude. Though slightly lower than Cuzco, at 3600 metres, climbing up the steep trails took it's toll on us both, leaving us breathless and struggling to keep up with the younger members of our party, (and Hector of course).

Soon enough the tour was finished and we had some time to ourselves to have lunch (take your own, the restaurant offers a buffet at $30 each, and the cafe was very overpriced - $15 for two burgers, 1 coke and 1 water). We did some further exploring of the city on our own after this, and then caught one of the frequent buses back down the mountainside, so that we could make our way to our hotel for the overnight stay.

We did have a bit of a surprise in store but you can read all about that in Peru 6 - Return of Gai Jin.

John&Lynnette	Latest page update: made by John&Lynnette , Aug 20 2008, 5:07 PM EDT (about this update About This Update Edited by John&Lynnette 519 words added 8 words deleted 2 images added 1 image deleted view changes - complete history)
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