As I write this Witt and I are sitting in the airport bleary
eyed and tired (a 4:45 a.m. wake-up generally has this effect) waiting for our
flight out to Iquitos, the next destination in our journey. As excited as I am
to begin our adventure down into the Amazon rainforest, I want to be able to
adequately reflect on the incredible experiences of the past two days.
My last post detailed our introduction to the Incan society
through the Cusco city tour and our trip out to the Sacred Valley. Those trips
were the perfect primer for our expedition to Machu Picchu. We left Cusco on
the morning train to Machu Picchu full of knowledge about rituals, Incan
beliefs, architecture and astronomy. Our train departed at 7:45 a.m., and we
were seated on one side of a table across from a kind gentleman from Japan who
is working in Lima. He gave us his business card as way of introduction, and
during the train ride showed us his handy handheld electronic language
dictionary that he uses to translate from Japanese to Spanish and English. It
was quite an impressive device, but I was more impressed by his mobility
between so many different languages even without much mastery of them.
The train had other perks as well. It was very nicely
decorated and it was pretty comfortable. The staff served us tea or juices and
home baked goodies. My sugar cookie was incredible. It was a good thing that
the train was so comfortable, however, because even though we were only
traveling 57 miles to get to the site from Cusco, it took three hours and
thirty minutes of travel to arrive.
When we finally got off the train in the small town built
around the tourist attraction we had a guide waiting for us. He walked us to
our hotel where we dropped off our baggage (we only brought our backpacks with
us since we were only there for a night and left our suitcases in Cusco). We
had time for a quick lunch before meeting back with our guide at 1 p.m. to head
up to the site. The tourist agency actually was rather efficient. They sent
someone to escort us from the hotel to the bus station, put us on the bus, then
had another guide waiting for us on top of the mountain when we arrived.
Because the town is located in the valley and Machu Picchu is on top of the
mountain, the bus that took us up was a surprisingly long trip. It had to
travel along different switchbacks up the mountain and couldn’t drive more than
25 miles an hour because of the steep paths, the sharpness of the curves, and
the ever-present chance that it could run into a bus coming back down the
mountain head on since the road was not quite wide enough for two vehicles.
After a couple of close calls with other buses, we made it to the top. When we
had arrived in the train station that morning it was raining, but by the time
we made it to the site it was a beautiful, warm and sunny day. Our guide was
named Lou, and he took us all throughout the old Incan city. He explained to us
that Machu Picchu was not the most important Incan city, and that the nobility
and scholars that had lived there were not as high ranking as those who had
lived in Cusco, which was the center of the empire. He also explained that the
importance of the site derives from the fact that it was never discovered by
the Spanish, so it was well preserved and better showed how the Incans had
lived.
Some of the buildings in Machu Picchu were similar to those
we had seen in the Sacred Valley – made with such exact architecture that you
had to marvel at how it was even possible to build without modern tools. Others
looked like your typical European ruin – homes that were made of stone, but
without the same size of stones or the tightness of the locks between them.
During our tour we learned about grain storage, the
construction of two-story buildings, the temples and sacrifices, the
agriculture (my personal favorite part of the society), and astronomy. I was
very taken by the quality of work that seemed to surround Incan lifestyle.
Their terraces for farming were built in a way that allowed water poured on the
first terrace to filter down all the way to the bottom of the terrace set. They
used clay, gravel, sand and soil in succession to make the terraces, and they
would import the sand from hundreds of kilometers away to ensure the best
quality. It fascinates me.
After a couple of hours with Lou we decided to take the bus
back down the mountain. Our hotel had included dinner and a drink at the bar,
so we tried a pisco sour (the most famous local cocktail) and chatted with some
travelers who we had ran into a couple of times before on our tour. Dinner was
pretty good as well, and we finished it early enough to go out in the town.
There weren’t a ton of people around, but we managed to join up with a group of
American travellers who had just completed the Incan trail and we all headed
into a bar that had a live band. We must of set a trend, because although we
were the first people to enter, the bar was packed by the end of the night. We
played Jenga, met some girls from Chile who joined us at our table, and danced
salsa. The only lady in the band looked really familiar, and after talking with
the other travelers we realized that we had all seen her do some sort of yoga
by the river that morning. I had the chance to talk to her some during the
night, and she agreed to teach us some of it the next morning!
We had settled on 8:30 a.m., so Witt and I got up early
enough to have breakfast and be ready for her arrival. Unfortunately rain
accompanied the first morning light, and it didn’t let up. Instead of cancel
our plans, however, we decided to give the Tensegrity a try under a tree by the
river. Tensegrity was an ancient practice that was dreamt up by its founders
thousands of years ago in Mexico, and was brought to the public’s attention in
the 1980s by a man named Carlos Castaneda. It included different breathing
exercises and rhythmic movements. Lauren, the singer we had met from the night
before, taught us 3 or 4 different routines. Unfortunately I can only remember
the last one (because we did it 9 times in a row), but it was pretty cool to
experience all of the different ones.
We wrapped up around 10, and Witt and I quickly checkout out
of the hotel and headed to the bus station to go back up to Machu Picchu for a
second time. The rain still hadn’t really let up, but it wasn’t too much worse
than a drizzle. When we got to the top of the mountain the site was completely
different than it had been before. Clouds were everywhere – we were literally
in them! It largely obscured our vision of the city, but it gave the experience
a very exotic feeling. We spent our time on top of the mountain hiking out to
the sun gate – the official entrance of Machu Picchu off of the Incan trail.
The hike was pretty long – 45-50 minutes at my best guest. Along the way we
found a huge rock overhang that offered some protection from the mist and rain
and a dry spot to sit. It had attracted other travelers as well and we met a
troupe from New Zealand and a guy from France while resting and enjoying the
dryness. After 10 or 15 minutes we headed back out on the trail and passed some
structure that had a huge altar stone on it then hiked even further to get to
the gate. The gate itself was cool but nothing spectacular. The view, however,
was out of this world. It was a great reward for the long uphill hike. We made
it back down pretty quickly (albeit with a couple of slips and falls on the wet
rocks), and caught a bus down with just enough time to grab lunch before
heading back to the train station to return to Cusco. The train was extra long
on the way back, and after about 4 hours we finally arrived back to Cusco.
Freddy, our tour director, was there waiting for us when we stepped off the
train. He drove us back to the hotel, and we were settled by 10 p.m. and
quickly fell asleep after such an active day. This morning started early and
appears to be a travel day, but we’ll see what excitement the afternoon will
hold in the Amazon!
