peru - machu picchu

Wednesday we left Cusco, bidding farewell to my favorite hostel thus far, with its beautiful bathroom, cozy common area and adjoining pizza place.  We hopped in a small bus to take a 2 hour ride to Ollantaytambo, the city we would take our brief train ride to Machu Picchu.  Its a cute, small, mountain town swarming with tourists all with the same destination in mind: Machu Picchu.  Here we did a little exploring, noticed rising prices, stayed in a lovely hostel and ate at a charming cafe called "Heart Cafe" (http://www.heartscafe.org/) where incredibly delicious food is served and 100% of the proceeds go to projects benefitting mostly women and children of the Machu Picchu region. 

We left Thursday by train toward the Machu Picchu Pueblo.  We heard the train ride was almost as fantasic as walking the Inca Trail.  I´m sure trekking the 4-day path is a more spectacular experience, but the views we had on our 2 hours bus ride were quite stunning of beautiful mountains and the rolling Urubama River.  When we arrived at the Pueblo, we were supposed to be greeted by someone from our hostel to take us back, but there was no one to be found.  We wandered through the streets looking for our temporary home and discovered how insane this small city is.  Every square inch is covered with restaurants and shops, with waiters coming at you from every angle trying to entice you in.  It was quite overwhelming!  We were able to locate our place (with some help) and turned out to be a bit of a dump.  Everything in the Pueblo is incredibly overpriced, so we opted to stay at lower budget accomodations...in a 5-bed dorm room.  We were pleased to discover that no one else was in our room, and walked around looking for the "cheapest" meal (which wasn´t).  We headed to bed early since we were planning on geting up at 4:30 the next morning to get to Machu Picchu before the rush.  Sometime in the night the overhead light went on and two people loudly rustled through their things for what seemed an eternity.  Once I finally fell asleep, the light went on a second time.  So much for a good first time dorm sleeping situation!  When 4:30 rolled around (far too soon), I wanted to blast the light and make tons of noise in retaliation but of course didn´t make a peep.

We grabbed our food supplies for the day and headed into the dark to our buses.  There were already lines forming at 5:00 to leave on the first buses at 5:30.  After our brief ride, we pulled into Machu Picchu at 6:00, just as the sun was rising.  When we entered the gates, we immediately signed up to climb Huayna Picchu, the famous peak seen in many photos taken of Machu Picchu.  Only 400 people are allowed to climb it each day, and slots get filled quickly!  As we rounded the corner to get our first glimpse of MP, it was overwhelming.  The sun was just coming over the mountains and a misty fog rising.  It had been raining over the past three days and our day in MP turned out to be completely sunny!  We briefly looked at the ruins but would come back to revisit as we knew we had to get to our mountain climb first. 

We read in our guidebook that Huayna Picchu was an "easy climb for anyone with reasonable energy."  Ha.  As we set out on the climb, it started out fairly easy, but we realized there were more and more stairs as we go further up.  We climbed hundreds of stairs, sometimes steep, slippery and overlooking huge dropoffs.  At times I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest or my lungs explode.  Guy was really nice to me the whole time, stopping when I needed to stop, encouraging me along, carrying all of our stuff and helping me where I needed help.  I felt bad for several women I saw whose companions were not exactly treating them so kindly.

The views were unlike any I´ve ever experienced, when I had the courage to look (and I´m not usually afraid of heights!).  Everytime I thought we were steps from the top, I realized there was another flight of stairs, a cave to climb through...until finally, we reached the peak!  It was quite exhilerating because we had worked so hard to get there, and also because the drop was so gigantic it was a bit dizzying! 

We enjoyed our victory for a short time before starting our downhill climb.  We thought the hard part was over!  The way the stairs were situated made it appear as though we were right on the edge of the mountain heading right over a cliff!  But once we got over the initial 10 minutes, it was pretty smooth sailing.  We were quite spent after our climb and stopped for lunch before checking out the ruins.  Although we didn´t have a guide to explain everything, we were still able to appreciate the incredible structures, stonework, and amazing views.  We saw some darling llamas, an old bridge, rows of terraces, temples, and a lizard on the path that made Guy jump 3 feet off the ground!  We had planned on taking a one hour walk back to town, but I was so tired after 8 hours we took the bus back.

That night we had planned on visiting the one other attraction of the Machu Picchu Pueblo...the hot springs.  It sounded so wonderful after a day of climbing and trekking.  They were minutes from our hostel, and when we arrived they looked a little less than desirable, but figured we´d give it a try.  They were packed with tourists and we ended up chatting for awhile with a very nice Australian couple who´ve also been traveling for awhile.  We laughed as other tourists arrived at the hot springs with disappointed faces as they saw the "exotic" condition of the baths.  Oh well, my muscles are thanking me for the warm bath today, even if the place seemed a little gross at the time!

Well the Lost City of the Incas really was as spectacular as we imagined it to be, and a once in a lifetime experience!