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.