Today is another early start in order to beat the crowds. We're ot the door at 6:30 and walk over to the line up to catch the bus back up the mountain. It's the only way to get there. Atilio says that the buses are owned by a consortium of 41 people and they individually rake in about $80,000 USD each month. That's a lot even by Donald Trump standards. The fare is $10 USD each way, and the buses carry exactly 41 people and the ride is less than 20 minutes. They run continuously from 5:30 am until the site closes at 5:00 pm.
The lineup at 6:30 is about 3 or 4 blocks long. Crazy. I think to myself, so much for beating the crowds. But apparently it gets even longer later in the morning. As we're waiting for the bus, Atilio points out the footbridge over the the river in Aguas Calientes. It's a bridge where couples attach their padlocks. I've heard about the one in Paris, this is the first one I've come across elsewhere.
The bus lineup goes relatively fast as each bus is fully loaded and we're off to explore. We arrive at the entrance and line up to get in.
Atilio finds a shady spot with bench seating and begins to talk about Machu Picchu. The historical stuff is well known about it being discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911. But he found out about it from local people who brought him to the site. Atilio says that that person was Machu Picchu's first guide.
The site is built on a ridge between two peaks, Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu. There are steep sides down each cliff face providing a natural defence to the site. Huayna Picchu is the peak you see in the background. Machu Picchu is behind me as I take this photo. This would be considered the backside of the complex.
The site was started around 1450 by the Inca ruler Pachacuti and continued on by his sons. It was abandoned about a century later when the Spaniards conquered the Incas. The theory is that it was abandoned due to introduction of smallpox by the Spaniards which wiped out this community. The site was never found by the Spaniards who had a history of destroying these types of settlements as part of a scorched earth policy.
In addition to the natural defences, the Incas also cleverly added other defences such as the Inca Bridge, a narrow footpath built into the rockface coming into Machu Picchu from the backside that made potential invaders highly vulnerable to defending Inca armies. The Incas could hurl rocks or burning matter down from a strategic vantage point (like from where this picture was taken) to knock the invaders off the narrow ledge or or even set the wooden bridge on fire. The gate was installed within the past few years after a tourist fell off the wood bridge section.
Machu Picchu was the private estate of the Inca ruler Pachacuti. There would have been officials, priests, other wealthy families and important servants living on site, but all the rest of the servants and unskilled builders would have lived in the valley below.
After being abandoned around 1550, the forest began to claim back the mountain and and 3 and a half centuries later, the site was very overgrown with causing a lot of root damage to some of the foundation walls. Restoration is ongoing. There are large piles of neatly stacked rocks throughout the site looking to be put back in place.
The sections where the most important people would live or were important religious buildings were made of large stones that were dry fitted without mortar. The joints were amazingly tight. This is the building known as the Temple of the Three Windows. The windows are trapezoid shape; the lintels apparently weigh 3 tons.
This was a principal temple. The walls have shifted a lot.
An impressive dry fit wall. The joinery lines are straight all the way down.
This picture below was taken from the area closer to Huayna Piccu looking back at the mountain Machu Picchu. Bingham called the building at the top a guardhouse but more recent scholars think it was used for another purpose.
The man in the foreground is one of many guards on site to ensure people keep on the right paths, or go in the right direction for some of the narrower sections, etc. They were put in place after people started doing things that weren't in keeping with the sacred significance of the site (taking nudie pictures was the one that outraged the country), or going in areas that were out of bounds. (Judith?)
View from the agricultural terraces on the entrance (east) side of the site.
We said goodbye to Machu Picchu at 1:00 and had our passports stamped. If I thought the morning bus line was long, the one to leave was insane. We waited about 45 minutes for our turn. There were lots of queue jumpers including one that tried to slip in ahead of me but I blocked his path. Waiting in a line up tests my patience. I have no sympathy for this type of behaviour no matter what your culture, especially when it's clear that everyone else is in a long queue.
By the time we got to the hotel and said goodbye to Atilio, i was 30 minutes late for my cooking class. I went to the bar where it was being held and there was no one there. The bartender asked me to wait as he made a call to the kitchen to arrange for the ceviche part of the lesson. Then he asked me to sit, handed me an apron and started the cooking class.
During cooking class, I received a complementary apron and learned how to make the Pisco Sour drink. It was followed by the ceviche presentation but I was so busy eating it I forgot to take a picture of the chef. Ceviche is like a sashimi, raw fish with lime juice and flavoured with cilantro, fresh chopped chilli peppers and julienned red onions. Mmmmmmmm.
This would be our last night in Aguas Calientes (also known as Machu Picchu Pueblo). We off tomorrow morning by train to Santa Teresa, a place so unknown, I couldn't find on google maps...
Vicky, I've so enjoyed your posts with my morning cup of coffee. Thank you for your generousity in posting them.
ReplyDeleteHappy trails.
Nancy F.