Machu Picchu

Last week, we were on a 4 day/3 night Inca Jungle Tour. Machu Picchu was not on our original agenda (not that we actually have an agenda) so we we didn't book in advance the official Inca Trail – the 23,000 kilometers (approximately 14,000 miles) of roads built by the Incas in South America. As I explained in the last blog entry, this tour includes a day of bike riding and two days of hiking and is one of the alternative hikes we can take around Machu Picchu. .

Below is a quick summary of our days leading up to Machu Picchu and my thoughts on the site.

Day 1 – Downhill Bike Ride
The first day, we did a 2-2.5-hour downhill bike ride. All the folks were going pretty fast, drifting downhill, making a nice turns along the road, while I trailed behind. I had a couple problems: I braked much of the way down, braked even more going into a turn and I was in the wrong gear. Wilson kept telling me to change gears on my bike, but I've never mastered changing gears on a bike. As a kid (and even now) I always rode on the same gear whether it was up or down hill. In fact, since I grew up in Salinas – a town of agricultural - everything was so flat there was no need to use the gears. Anyway, after attempting to change gears the first time, my chain fell off. I was already trailing behind the group but after the chain came off, I was really behind. It's funny because as we were going downhill, we had a van that followed us the whole way. The driver of the van stopped when he noticed I was having problems with my bike. But the driver never stepped out of his car to help me. Instead, Wilson and this other guy helped me put my chain back on.

We were back on the road in no time, and the rest of the group was waiting for us further down the road. When we arrived, we all started up again. This time, I was smart enough to get behind the guide, not brake but drift down the hill, and only brake slightly before the turns, while pedaling into the turns. I was really scared because our guide told us one lady died from this downhill bike ride just 3 weeks back. Apparently she was going too fast downhill and as she was making a blinded turn, she went head-on with a car. The car obviously won.

After another 1.5 hours, we were done. We headed to a small town one hour from where we ended. The place where we stayed was a “hospedaje” for just our group of 10. Not the best smelling, nor looking, hotel but it was pretty neat to get the whole place to ourselves. Kind of like those deserted hotels in the middle of nowhere. This town only had about 1,000 people or less – no Internet, animals and kids running around the streets and dirt roads.

Day 2 – Trekking

On the second day, we did a 8-hour hike up and down a mountain into the town of Santa Maria. We started the trek around 7:15 am and ended around 4 or 5 pm. The trek was beautiful along the mountain but there were points during the hike when I was scared out of my wits. Near the top of one of the mountains, we had to walk down these stairs on a narrow path where you can see the bottom of the mountain where the river ran. I knew if I slipped and fell, I would not be happy. I also noticed at this point that I was scared of heights (at least when it was this high) so as I was walking down the stairs, I was hugging the side of the mountain, while the rest of the group walked quickly down.

After we were done with the hike, we arrived in a little town where there were natural hot baths. The water apparently comes from the mountains and the ground. This was a great way to end a near-8-hour hike. There were a number of pools including one that was super hot (like a hot tub), a luke warm bath (like your tub) and a really cold one where cold water came down from the mountain.


When we were done with the baths, a bus took us to a little town about 20-minutes from the thermal baths, Santa Maria. This town had about 2,000 or more folks, they had Internet and a couple more main streets than the previous place. Again, we got our own rooms and this time it didn't smell musky. We even hit a couple of discotecas (clubs) that our guide brought us to. I think the first club she brought us to was owned by her friend. The place smelled like an aquarium, and just as Wilson was saying this to the other folks in our group, our guide started spraying a disinfectant in all the rooms. Yum. The club reminded me of the clubs in Wuhan, China – garage-looking rooms with bad speakers, no people except the folks that worked there and an ugly ambiance. There was no one in this club except for our tour group.

Day 3 – Railroad Tracks

Today was the worse of the three days. We hiked for approximately 3.5 hours along the railroad tracks to Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to Machu Picchu. The whole time, all of us had to look down to keep ourselves from tripping over the tracks and the rocks around it. Although the scenery was beautiful around us, we had to continue looking down the whole 3.5 hours, missing the beautiful sites around us. Even more, our guide walked about 30 meters in front of us, not making stops to explain the scenery around us or keeping us entertained, so many of us in the group thought this was one of the worse days of the hike. A couple of us even wondered why we didn't just take the actual train that led us to the town...I guess it's all for the experience.

The highlight of the day was when one of our group members, Grant from Canada, put a coin under the train as it was crossing. He got a nicely, flattened Peruvian sol. After, we all started putting coins on the tracks as the trains crossed over them. I think the best coin to put under the track is an American quarter. The coin was flattened so much that we could no longer read what was on the coin. (As you can see, the hike must have been really boring for us to be so entertained by this.)

We finally arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes, the nearest town to Machu Picchu. Wilson and some other folks climbed up a mountain overlooking Machu Picchu while the rest of the group relaxed in town. According to Wilson, the guide took this group to the foot of the mountain and then left the group to go up by themselves with no further advice. This mountain was quite dangerous because the group was going up pretty late (the sun was about to set) and it was pretty steep. I understand all the other groups at the top of this mountain went up with their guides. Wilson said he had to come down this steep mountain in the dark, all while he had a rumbling stomach (he knew he had food poisoning yet again).

Day 4 – Machu Picchu
After three days of hiking and biking, we knew the big day has come – the day to see Machu Picchu. Wilson, (a veteran of food poisoning) got over a quick evening of food poisoning and felt much better this morning. We got up bright and early around 4:15 am to catch a 5:35 am bus to Machu Picchu. The bus line was about 80+ people early in the morning. I felt like it was Disneyland, where you had to wait in a long line for one ride. Surprisingly, the buses were very efficient and the line went down in 10 minutes.


We arrived in Machu Picchu around 6:00 am with the rest of the tourists. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see the sunrise because the morning clouds had not burned off yet. But at approximately 8:00 am or so, the clouds went away and we saw a spectacular view of Machu Picchu and the mountains surrounding it.

Random Thoughts of the Site

Machu Picchu is definitely a spectacular site – being set on a mountainside with beautiful mountains surrounding it and being built hundreds of years ago of rock and clay. One question I have around the site is why does everyone feel like they have to hike 4-5 days prior to visiting the site when there are buses that lead directly to Machu Picchu. Even we did a hike for a couple days before seeing Machu Picchu (just because we felt we had to) but of course had a great time. This hike and all the other alternative trails don't even lead the hikers directly into Machu Picchu. Instead, hikers walk on the outskirts of where the site is and never into Machu Picchu. I guess it's all for the experience.

It's also hard for me to compare Machu Picchu to other sites in the world (as I probably shouldn't) like The Great Wall, Ankor Wot, The Forbidden City, etc. It's definitely something worth seeing but I didn't get a 'wowing' experience from the actual ruins. Instead, I was more impressed by the setting of the ruins, hidden among the other mountains and the fact that it was built on a mountainside in the 1400-1500s. The guide told us that Cusco was once the Capital of the Inca empire, and was built in a similar fashion as Machu Picchu until the Spanish conquered the Incas and destroyed the city of Cusco. I think it would have been more interesting to see Cusco then (it would have been like Machu Picchu but at a much larger scale). But even today, Cusco is a beautiful colonial town with cobblestone roads, big churches and great buildings.

On a different note, we are currently reading the book “Lost City of the Incas” by Hiram Bingham, who claimed he found Machu Picchu, although according to Wikipedia others have found the site before him but did not do further research nor document like Bingham. Perhaps this is a book worth picking up before visiting Machu Picchu.

Altitude Sickness

After three days in La Paz, we thought we had adjusted to the altitude of nearly 3,640 M pretty well. During one of our dinners, we had a couple of local Pilsner beers with our Peruvian food (we ordered a pile of rice with fried fish and pig fat-chicharon). After dinner, we had to hike up a flight of stairs and walk about half a block to our hostel As we began walking up the flight of stairs, we noticed immediately that our hearts started pounding, as if we had just run a mile in 6 minutes (or less). I was starting to think we were an old-out-of-shape couple (though we kind of are) until asking a couple other folks if the same thing happened to them. We found out that alcohol really worsens the affects of altitude sickness. Our nice Canadian couple friends also mentioned it got worse for them after half a bottle of beer - and they took altitude pills.

Other symptoms include our throbbing headaches, a bloody nose, tight chest and shortness of breath.

Copacabana, Bolivia
We also took a two-day trip outside to Copacabana, Bolivia (right outside of La Paz). Copacabana is a developed city bordering the never-ending Lake Titicaca. The lake has a surface area of 8,300 km square, with a length of 195 km and an average width of 50 km, and borders both Bolivia and Peru. It's much bigger than our Lake Tahoe at home.

In Copacabana, there really was not much to do other than explore the small town and take a day-trip to the Isla de Sol (Sun Island). So the first day we took a little hike up to the Stations of the Cross in Copacabana, where we got a nice view of the city and watched the sunset. Immediately, as we were hiking up this small hill, we noticed once again how the altitude really affected us. We were huffing and puffing after only 30 meters or less but managed to make it to the top.

The following day, we took a boat to Isla de Sol. This little island is divided into three communities – the north, south and middle. The guide told us that the north and south communities were richer than the middle community because they got much of their money from tourism, as many of the boats embark at either side of the island.
The middle portion is the poorest since they do not get any of the tourist funds. We were also told that we were only supposed to pay at the North and South ends of the islands and not to pay anyone in between that would be asking us for money.

During our hike, we were approached about four times to pay. It's a bit strange to be hiking down the same stretch for about 3 hours and out of the blue, be asked to pay a fee. I think the funniest incident was when we were approached the second time to pay, an indigenous man asked us to pay and we all refused (since we were specifically told by the guide to avoid anyone asking for payment in the middle of the hike). After we refused, two indigenous women tried to block Wilson and another guy (who was not small) trying to walk by screaming we were to pay and if we refused would be charged more at the end. I wanted to take a picture but thought it would be rude during a time of conflict.

Overall, the hike was beautiful along the Titicaca Lake although there was not a lot of changing scenery.

Machu Picchu
Since we've somewhat adjusted to the altitude, and because we are so close to the Peruvian border, we've decided to see Machu Picchu. The official trail on Machu Picch is the Inca Trail but you have to book up to four months in advance since there are only a limited number of people allowed on the trail daily. Unfortunately, we didn't plan on coming here so we've opted for an Inca Jungle Tour which includes some trail bike riding (all down hill) and two days of hiking, none of which lead us to Machu Picchu. We actually have to take a train to Machu Picchu from a nearby town, Aguas Calientes, on our fourth day. We were supposed to leave today for this hike but there was some misunderstanding with the agency so we leave tomorrow instead. We will have to provide a short update when we get back.

That's it for now.

Final Argentinian Highlights / Hola Bolivia

We just arrived in La Paz, Bolivia. We'll try to take it easy for a couple days since the altitude is 11942 feet above sea level (great excuse to not exercise for a couple days!). But honestly, Wilson and I have been having headaches these last two days.

Before leaving Argentina, we visited Patagonia: Perito Moreno Glacier in El Calafate and Fitzroy in El Chaten - and had to say good bye to some folks we really liked (but happy -or sad- to report there were no tears during the good bye). Patagonia was absolutely one of the highlights to our trip.

The Perito Moreno Glacier, in the Perito Moreno National Park, looked like a perfect square chunk of ice (well, it is) on a lake. It reminded me of the perfect white-frosted cakes at the gourmet bakery shops--until the end of the glacier caves in. Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the famous glaciers known for its frequent 'cave-ins'.

We also hiked on the glaciers with camprons (spikes worn on the bottom of your shoes). I was a bit nervous before the trek on the Glacier, but once Wilson told me that the trek was for folks between the ages of 10-60, I "knew I can do it." The photos in the following link really show-off the beauty of the glaciers:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=73240&id=545832350&l=cd5d333b53.

For our hike up (and this was really a hike) to Fitzroy in El Chaten, it took us nearly 4 hours to get near the top. The hike was absolutely beautiful with changing scenery throughout the trek. We highly recommend Patagonia as a must-visit before you die.
(More photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=73238&id=545832350&l=25baed95f9)

On the Bolivian front, we arrived the day before Easter around 1 am and settled nicely into our hostal - Posada del Abuela. The first day in La Paz, we ate at a great restaurant (well, great for the price): Angelo Colonial on Avenida Santa Cruz. For less than $3, we got salad, soup, pork with veggies and fries and a coffee. We immediately noticed the service was more attentive and friendly compared to Argentina. After lunch, we strolled around town with a slight headache due to the altitude.

Later, Wilson got a massage (which he later told me was in a bathroom), while I went to buy him a birthday present (don't tell him) and had my first beer in Bolivia. I immediately noticed that the 'head' (for non drinkers: that's the bubbles) of the beer was much taller than normal. I understand this is also due to the altitude.

That's it for now. We'll update again once we decide where we'd like to go.