Peru trip day 8; (Inca Trail day 4) Sunday Oct 18
Machu Picchu day and my 28th birthday!
And here's the link to the picasa album where I posted all the pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/smsimonson/Peru?feat=content_notification#
We explore Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, after the cut.
Waking up at 4am was hard, even with the slight insomnia provided by the altitude.
Breakfast was crepes with honey and omlettes. Its hard to imagine that Alex carried eggs all that way along the trail but maybe the porters have means to get fresh supplies here at the last camp.
Alex gave us each our last bagged snack, and we got out of their way while they broke camp. We went to the bar to sit and wait for the trail to open at 5:30. The vigorous people all lined up to hit the trail as soon as they were allowed, so they could race ahead and get to the Sun Gate by dawn. On the solstice, the first dawn light passes through the Sun Gate and into an observation window in the Sun Temple down in Machu Picchu city, where it hits a specific place on the piece of bedrock enshrined there. But its not the solstice today, and its cloudy, so there is no need to rush.
At the final checkpoint, our names are crosschecked against the master visitors list, and our passports are stamped.
I remember thinking that this last part of the trail would be super short, so I was surprised and impatient that it took us almost 3 hours, and included some of the steepest climbing we'd done yet. The final staircase up to the Sun Gate was about 75 degrees inclined, and it was hilarious to see passenger after passenger come to the bottom of the steps and say a variaton of "you've got to be kidding... well, I've come this far."
At the Sun Gate, we had our first look down into Machu Picchu. We felt such pride and accomplishment in this moment. It was the culmination of a lifelong dream for my mother. We stopped to take pictures of each of us with the city as a backdrop.
The walk from the sun gate to the city took another hour, along a trail that it butressed against a very steep side of the mountain. There was one place there the steps turned sharply to the right and extended into what felt like open space, before turning sharply left again. There was only a basic handrail nailed together from treebranches, an obvious modern addition, to keep you from going over the edge. This was the only place on the whole trail where I felt some acrophobia.
The terraces below the Sun Gate and Machu Picchu extended halfway down the mountain. Actually, Simba says they extend all the way down but we can only see the ones that have been excavated and cleared of jungle.
We stopped at two holy sites along this trail. One was a big horizontal slab of stone, and we left piles of coca leaves. (No hardship for me, I'm done with the stuff)
The other was a huge vertical slab of stone with 2 low concentric stone fences around it. Simba told us we'd have to take off our shoes to go in there, which Ken and I did. At the face of the stone, people had wedged offerings into little cracks, like at the wailing wall. I saw coca, but mostly coins from all different countries.
We entered the city through the upper agricultural section, which is now a llama park. There were lots of llamas grazing here, which is certainly easier than mowing. Simba took us to a stone slab that overlooked the city and had us pose for pictures. This is the place where all the iconic shots of MP are taken for postcards and tourbooks.
Backpacks and walkingsticks are forbidden within the city, so we checked them at a bag check for 3 soles.
Simba gave us a quick tour of the city, then said goodbye so he could catch his train. Mom had asked for latest train return, so we still had 4 hours to explore.
Most of the terraces of city face east towared Happy Mountain, on the other side of the river, which has a smooth slab face that extends from the base all the way to its summit. Mom and Ken felt the happiness coming off it, but I felt an ominousness. It certainly dominated the scene.
MP is sinking because the mountain is hollow, and some buildings are almost falling down from settling. This may be why the place was abandoned.
Nobody knows why MP was built or what it was for, because it was already long abandoned when the Spanish arrived.
It may have been a university for priests, and it has all kinds of sun-calendar features used to tell time.
It may have been the empire's main growing site for coca. Cusco is too high elevation but MP is just right, and the agriculture terraces are vastly oversized for the city. The "upper city" features rows of buildings that to me looked like little warehouses. If this was a production and storage facility, that would make sense. The upper city also has many temples. The lower city has buildings with more of a domestic plan, although they are too big and permenant to be "lower class". They looked like estates for nobility to me.
Simba told us the Inca had three powers: the power of love, the power of knowledge, and the power of work. They also had three sayings that they used in place of "goodbye". Don't be a thief, don't be a liar, and don't be lazy.
Inca society was pretty communist. Everyone had a role/job, towns paid tax to the state in the form of labor and production, and the state doled out food and goods to the people. The system worked on reciprocity. The conquerors took over this system and instead of working for 2 years, the young men were worked to death as slave labor in the silver mines.
I had read about MP, and studied maps, so I always felt like I knew where I was. But that didn't mean I knew how to get where I wanted to go, because that place is a maze!
One site Simba explained was the Sun Temple, which features the best stonework in MP, and carefully chosen stones of the exact same color as the bedrock stone its build on/around. Simba said that the ideal Inca holy place was a big exposed stone that provided an upper promontory to worship the sky, a flat stone face to worship the stone, and a deep cleft or hollow underneath to worship the earth, which is exactly what you find at the Sun Temple. I noticed that each conjunto (grouping of rooms, more or less a house) in the city had a place like this, and it reminded me of the way all the noble family villas in Italy had private chapels.
The temple of the condor is a strange building, containing two of these big exposed stones that people say form the wings of a condor. Between them, theres a low stone slab with a teardrop shape carved into it, which people say is the head of the condor. It simply does NOT come across in pictures, but in person we did see the condor in it. On the other hand, these people were NOT abstract art people, when they made representational art, it was very literal.
There's a lone tree growing in the central plaza. You can actually date pictures of MP by how big this tree is. In person it was a lot bigger than the pictures we'd been studying.
Ken wanted to explore alone, and since there's a cell phone tower here, we agreed to text each other to meet up again. Mom and I climbed the steepest staircase yet, 80 degrees. We would not have attempted it if we'd known that, but it got steeper as it went on.
Its possible to climb Huyana Picchu, which is a smaller mountain that leaps up dramatically from the end of the city. But its very steep and the trail is rated "Dangerous". Also, we figured we'd done enough climbing and trail hiking, so we skipped it.
Rain clouds crept in after noon, so we took the bus down the mountain to Aguas Calientes. A modern road had been built up to the city, using about a dozen switchbacks. We had soup in a nice sidewalk cafe in the town, then took the train back to Cusco. The train took a lot longer than a bus. Backpackers and day trippers were seperated into different cars on the train, which i'm sure the day trippers appreciated because we hadn't showered in 4 days.
We were met in Puroy and transferred back to our hotel where we reclaimed our luggage. A shower and clean clothes felt heavenly. I called Steve, and he said the cat is being more talkative and clingy, and at night she meows sadly and curls up on my side of the bed. I miss her too.
And here's the link to the picasa album where I posted all the pictures.
http://picasaweb.google.com/smsimonson/Peru?feat=content_notification#
We explore Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, after the cut.
Waking up at 4am was hard, even with the slight insomnia provided by the altitude.
Breakfast was crepes with honey and omlettes. Its hard to imagine that Alex carried eggs all that way along the trail but maybe the porters have means to get fresh supplies here at the last camp.
Alex gave us each our last bagged snack, and we got out of their way while they broke camp. We went to the bar to sit and wait for the trail to open at 5:30. The vigorous people all lined up to hit the trail as soon as they were allowed, so they could race ahead and get to the Sun Gate by dawn. On the solstice, the first dawn light passes through the Sun Gate and into an observation window in the Sun Temple down in Machu Picchu city, where it hits a specific place on the piece of bedrock enshrined there. But its not the solstice today, and its cloudy, so there is no need to rush.
At the final checkpoint, our names are crosschecked against the master visitors list, and our passports are stamped.
I remember thinking that this last part of the trail would be super short, so I was surprised and impatient that it took us almost 3 hours, and included some of the steepest climbing we'd done yet. The final staircase up to the Sun Gate was about 75 degrees inclined, and it was hilarious to see passenger after passenger come to the bottom of the steps and say a variaton of "you've got to be kidding... well, I've come this far."
At the Sun Gate, we had our first look down into Machu Picchu. We felt such pride and accomplishment in this moment. It was the culmination of a lifelong dream for my mother. We stopped to take pictures of each of us with the city as a backdrop.
The walk from the sun gate to the city took another hour, along a trail that it butressed against a very steep side of the mountain. There was one place there the steps turned sharply to the right and extended into what felt like open space, before turning sharply left again. There was only a basic handrail nailed together from treebranches, an obvious modern addition, to keep you from going over the edge. This was the only place on the whole trail where I felt some acrophobia.
The terraces below the Sun Gate and Machu Picchu extended halfway down the mountain. Actually, Simba says they extend all the way down but we can only see the ones that have been excavated and cleared of jungle.
We stopped at two holy sites along this trail. One was a big horizontal slab of stone, and we left piles of coca leaves. (No hardship for me, I'm done with the stuff)
The other was a huge vertical slab of stone with 2 low concentric stone fences around it. Simba told us we'd have to take off our shoes to go in there, which Ken and I did. At the face of the stone, people had wedged offerings into little cracks, like at the wailing wall. I saw coca, but mostly coins from all different countries.
We entered the city through the upper agricultural section, which is now a llama park. There were lots of llamas grazing here, which is certainly easier than mowing. Simba took us to a stone slab that overlooked the city and had us pose for pictures. This is the place where all the iconic shots of MP are taken for postcards and tourbooks.
Backpacks and walkingsticks are forbidden within the city, so we checked them at a bag check for 3 soles.
Simba gave us a quick tour of the city, then said goodbye so he could catch his train. Mom had asked for latest train return, so we still had 4 hours to explore.
Most of the terraces of city face east towared Happy Mountain, on the other side of the river, which has a smooth slab face that extends from the base all the way to its summit. Mom and Ken felt the happiness coming off it, but I felt an ominousness. It certainly dominated the scene.
MP is sinking because the mountain is hollow, and some buildings are almost falling down from settling. This may be why the place was abandoned.
Nobody knows why MP was built or what it was for, because it was already long abandoned when the Spanish arrived.
It may have been a university for priests, and it has all kinds of sun-calendar features used to tell time.
It may have been the empire's main growing site for coca. Cusco is too high elevation but MP is just right, and the agriculture terraces are vastly oversized for the city. The "upper city" features rows of buildings that to me looked like little warehouses. If this was a production and storage facility, that would make sense. The upper city also has many temples. The lower city has buildings with more of a domestic plan, although they are too big and permenant to be "lower class". They looked like estates for nobility to me.
Simba told us the Inca had three powers: the power of love, the power of knowledge, and the power of work. They also had three sayings that they used in place of "goodbye". Don't be a thief, don't be a liar, and don't be lazy.
Inca society was pretty communist. Everyone had a role/job, towns paid tax to the state in the form of labor and production, and the state doled out food and goods to the people. The system worked on reciprocity. The conquerors took over this system and instead of working for 2 years, the young men were worked to death as slave labor in the silver mines.
I had read about MP, and studied maps, so I always felt like I knew where I was. But that didn't mean I knew how to get where I wanted to go, because that place is a maze!
One site Simba explained was the Sun Temple, which features the best stonework in MP, and carefully chosen stones of the exact same color as the bedrock stone its build on/around. Simba said that the ideal Inca holy place was a big exposed stone that provided an upper promontory to worship the sky, a flat stone face to worship the stone, and a deep cleft or hollow underneath to worship the earth, which is exactly what you find at the Sun Temple. I noticed that each conjunto (grouping of rooms, more or less a house) in the city had a place like this, and it reminded me of the way all the noble family villas in Italy had private chapels.
The temple of the condor is a strange building, containing two of these big exposed stones that people say form the wings of a condor. Between them, theres a low stone slab with a teardrop shape carved into it, which people say is the head of the condor. It simply does NOT come across in pictures, but in person we did see the condor in it. On the other hand, these people were NOT abstract art people, when they made representational art, it was very literal.
There's a lone tree growing in the central plaza. You can actually date pictures of MP by how big this tree is. In person it was a lot bigger than the pictures we'd been studying.
Ken wanted to explore alone, and since there's a cell phone tower here, we agreed to text each other to meet up again. Mom and I climbed the steepest staircase yet, 80 degrees. We would not have attempted it if we'd known that, but it got steeper as it went on.
Its possible to climb Huyana Picchu, which is a smaller mountain that leaps up dramatically from the end of the city. But its very steep and the trail is rated "Dangerous". Also, we figured we'd done enough climbing and trail hiking, so we skipped it.
Rain clouds crept in after noon, so we took the bus down the mountain to Aguas Calientes. A modern road had been built up to the city, using about a dozen switchbacks. We had soup in a nice sidewalk cafe in the town, then took the train back to Cusco. The train took a lot longer than a bus. Backpackers and day trippers were seperated into different cars on the train, which i'm sure the day trippers appreciated because we hadn't showered in 4 days.
We were met in Puroy and transferred back to our hotel where we reclaimed our luggage. A shower and clean clothes felt heavenly. I called Steve, and he said the cat is being more talkative and clingy, and at night she meows sadly and curls up on my side of the bed. I miss her too.