Cusco and the Sacred Valley, Peru‏

Machu Picchu!!!!

29.07.2010 - 03.08.2010 23 °C

29.07.2010

We left this morning from La Paz on a 12h bus to Cusco in Peru. This will be our last new city to visit in Peru before flying to Buenos Aires. We arrived a little after 7 and got a cab immediately to a hostel called Hostel Andrea, about a 10 minute walk from the centre. The place was pretty basic but it was cheap, warmish and even had cable tv. We went straight out to grab some dinner and have a look round the city.

After a short walk it was clear Cusco was not like other cities in Peru. It has obviously had a lot more money pumped into it from tourism but as well as that there are lots of nice, old, well maintained building with a lot of history. On the other hand there is also lots of new buildings, built to look like old ones which gives a kind of fake feel to it but its nice nether the less. Definitely doesn't feel like you gonna get robbed here either which was different to a lot of places we had been.
In the Plaza de Armas the was a band playing to celebrating something, we couldn't quite work out what. Matt got dragged into the crow of dancing Peruvians which was quite funny.

Next Morning

31.07.2010
After booking our train and Machu Pichu ticket (which I managed to get student discount on despite the lack of international card which was a touch) in Cusco we headed to a town called Urubamba. We went via a local bus service which wasn't pleasant but was cheap. I got sat next to some old Peruvian women who had a couple boxed of chickens she couldn't keep hold of and who seemed to think I was her sleeping post. It was ok though as it only took one and a half hours.
Once there we checked in to a Hostel recommended in the lonely planet called Perales, run by an english speaking peruvian and his family. This was a really dilapidated orchard with spare building for travellers to sleep. Although being run down and a little expensive they were really friendly and offered us fruit they have grown, like these weird passion fruit type things which were really nice.
The owner then walked us into town and helped get us a taxi to take us on a tour of the local ruins. Originally we were put in this new, spacious people carrier but got shortly swapped to some ancient saloon that sounded like it was gonna die at any moment.
First up was the Salineras which was an Inca salt mine which was still in use today. This was much bigger than it sound. On the side of a mountain they had built and irrigation system to take the salty water from the mountains and collect it in these pans they had dug out, so they could evaporate the water and extract the salt. This design was really intricate and the amount of salt they produced was insane.

After this it was on to a site called moray. Here there is a massive bowl of Inca agricultural terracing built into the ground. Again this was massive and beautiful to look at from above. Its hard to believe that something like that could be built with such precision that long ago. We walked down to the bottom which took about 10 minute. To get down from each level you had to walk down stairs which had been build into the sides of the walls which was cool. Reminded me of Crash Bandicoot.

We headed back to the hostel where Matt and I stayed, Bigz had decided to go to Ollyantaytambo where we would be heading tomorrow before getting the train to Machu Pichu.

01.08.2010-02.08.2010
Matt and I woke up and had the most awesome breakfast at the hostel then got a combi bus to Ollyantaytambo. This was real cramped, they really pack those thing out but think it cost about 25p so can't really complain. Here there were some ruins built into the hill side, this was one of the last Inca stronghold. The ruins surround the town, to see them you had to have a bolleto turistico which we didn't and was to expensive to buy if you were only gonna see the one site. We just admired them from the ground level and spent the rest of the day on the net and eating.

At 23:00 we took our train to the closest town to Machupicchu, Aguacalientes and arrived a little after 1. We had booked a hostel to come meet us at the station and take us there but we couldn't see them so just went straight to the first one who we could barter down to the same price. The place was a bit of a mess and our room stank of piss but we were only gonna take 2 hours kip before heading to Machupicchu. Thanks to some Peruvian dick outside on a sofa snoring we didn't get these so we headed off with no sleep.

Machu Picchu
Bigz had decided to get the bus up but Matt and I wanted to trek to make sure we could get tickets for Huaynapicchu as they only give out 200 for the morning. We walked for about 20 minutes on flat ground before reaching a set of closed gates. Here we were told that instead of opening at 3:00 like usual they would be open at 5:00 which meant we only had a half hour advantage on the first but to do an hour trek up a really steep hill. Bastards!!!!
We tried to have a little sleep on the road while waiting (or Matt did, I occupied most my time trying to figure out a stealth way across the river) but this didn't work with the rain and noise. At 4:40 the guys opened the gates and everyone rushed to the trail. When we looked behind the 30 or so people we were originally there with had turned into a cue of well over a hundred so the race was really on. This trek was much steeper than I had original expected. 10 minutes in, I was finding it had to breath and was dripping with sweat, despite the freezing temperature. We pressed on and I'm not sure if it got easier or that I managed to block it out my mind but after only 45 minutes we had mad it to the top. I wasn't convince this was it at first as we normally take longer than the guide time plus we had no sleep but no this was definitely it.
We were In the first 20 or 30 people up there and managed to secure our place on Huaynapicchu which was as a very nice feeling. The feeling here was half like being at a theme park early waiting to be let in and half like coming out of a club at 7am dripping with sweat, wondering where the hell you are and how you got there.
Golden Ticket!

The cue behind us

Looking around all we could see was cloud, as daylight started to break we were aloud in and headed straight up a load more stairs to the classic view point to get an early morning picture. From here you can see the whole site. At this time clouds were swamping the site but this in itself was amazing to see.

From there we went to the bottom of Huaynapicchu to start the hour trek up this. Huaynapicchu is the mountain in the back of the classic Machupicchu picture and its not until you have trekked up it that you realise just how high it is. The trek up was pretty hard (maybe more so after the one to Machupicchu), taking you up narrow stairs and at one point through a couple of cave passages. At the top we literally were in the clouds, it was so amazing.
We waited here for the sun to rise fully and clear the clouds so we could see Machupicch from this height. This was spectacular, being this high up and looking down on such a huge place looking so small. Well worth the mission to get here on time (or so we thought until we met a couple who managed to get two of the last passes when taking the bus but oh well).

Down at the bottom we explored the site for a couple of hours before heading back up to the view point to take some more pictures and have a little rest.

The whole time we were keeping our eyes out for Bigz and at one point I was sure I saw him on one side so I missioned it down from really high up and across the site to find someone had left a jumper similar to his on a rock. Matt and I felt we had seen enough now and started the trek back down to Aguacalientes. This took much longer than I though it would as it was all down hill. I couldn't really believe we managed to do it so quickly in the morning as it really was steep.