Saturday, November 15, 2008

Muchos Picchus y Logica Peruana

We got up at the ungodly hour of 4:30am, after a nice 4-hour nap, and made our way to the railway station. After a scenic ride through Cuzco, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo (sp?) and some amazing mountain and river scenes, we got to the train´s final stop, Aguas Calientes aka Machu Picchu Pueblo. Lonely Planet´s description of the little town was pretty accurate: "the ugliest, most overpriced tourist trap" in Peru. Fortunately all we needed to do there was get our passes for the ruins and hop on a bus. Luckily Machu Picchu is a little lower than Cuzco, so my altitude sickness was gone.

After a 45min bus ride up a winding mountain road, we finally got to the Machu Picchu ruins. We hiked up to the Watchman´s Hut (or something similar) for a couple of postcard shots of the ruins below, and then cut through the ruins to hike up the 350m vertical ascent to Huyana Picchu. They only let in 400 people per day, and we were around number 300 for the day (and this is still considered low season), so we were a little lucky to be let in. Katja, a German solo traveller asked to tag along, and of course we agreed.

The climb took us about 1 hour 15 min, and was sweaty work in the hot weather. We also ended up taking a slightly more adventurous route than most tourists, involving crawling through a tiny little cavern with 10cm of water at the bottom. But once we finally got to the top, the views were truly breathtaking. The Incan ruins, majestic cloud-hugging mountains, and a river snaking through the valley below were just awesome. We played paparazzi for a while, but after finding out that 1.5cm, ant-like insects also like the view from the top, we decided it would be a good time to head down.

It turned out Katja has a bit of a fear of heights, so coming back down was a little slower than going up. We eventually got down around 3pm, and realized we haven´t eaten anything since the breakfast on the train around 8am. The only restaurant around Machu Picchu was closed, but luckily I found a little cafe that still had exactly two ham & cheese sandwiches left. Unfortunately, they were all too aware of their monopoly power, and charged us about $12 for each sandwich + coke (about 8 times the going rate in Cuzco or Lima). Oh well, that´s capitalism for you.

We made another excursion into the ruins to check out the Temple of the Sun, the Banos and a few other staple landmarks, but in all honesty, I think Machu Picchu is super-impressive from a distance (the scale, architecture, location, stonework...) but doesn´t have that much to see up-close. Probably most of the interesting stuff was looted or destroyed by the Conquistadores way back, when they were trying to squash the "pagan" sun worship. What would Francisco Pizarro say if he knew Spain is now one of the main destinations for sun worshippers all over Europe?

One point of interest about Machu Picchu is how they use llamas (I think - they supposedly have shorter fur than alpacas) to keep the grass short. The animals are pretty nimble in climbing from one level to the next, wherever there is long grass to be eaten. I couldn´t help but wonder whether the original Inca inhabitants used the same brand of lawnmower, or whether prisoners of war made better gardeners.

We headed back to Cuzco on the 7pm train. At the railway station, we found the 6pm train had broken down, leaving hundreds of backpackers stranded in the beautiful Aguas Calientes. Our train however was set to leave on time. We had actually considered switching to the 6pm a little earlier in the day, after we found the ruins close at 5pm - so fortunate we didn´t! So we got on our train, and found that there were only 4 passengers in the 60-person train car. PeruRail had decided not to take any of the passengers from the earlier train, which we found completely bizarre. Granted, we had paid a bit more for a higher class "Vistadome" train, but I´m sure lots of people would have been willing to pay the difference. Now, instead, PeruRail would probably need to find accommodation for all the stranded passengers while they fix the train, as I doubt Machu Picchu is equipped for train repairs in the middle of the night. Peruvian logic?

Our train only went halfway (the last direct train to Cuzco leaves at 5pm), so we took a cab from Ollantaytambo, and paid about $4 each for a 1h 30min ride. The driver took on a couple of extra passengers to make more money on the trip, and one of them was transporting a ton of fruit, so we spent the journey in the sweet scent of oranges. Could have been worse, I guess. She could have been transporting fish.

No comments: