Ah! Finally the one and only Machu Picchu!

When we think of Egypt we think of the pyramids. When we think of Peru this is the lost Inca city of Machu Picchu that comes to mind. Well, lost until found again at the beginning of the last century and becomes now the main Peruvian tourist attraction. But before we tell you what Machu Picchu is today, let’s dream a little bit with these postal card pictures of this great Inca city lost for centuries on the top of a hill part the much larger mountain of Machu Picchu.

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Who hasn’t dreamed of putting his backpack on and start walking in the virgin jungle of Peru to reach this legendary Inca city that was thought to be the last Inca city where the last Incas retrieved with all their riches after the invasion of conquistadors? Well no gold or any kind of treasure was found in that city but by its geographical location it was left unspoiled for probably for over three centuries and we can now still see the stone walls that were put in place with rudimental tools and untouched during all those years. You see, all other Inca sites in Peru are either half destroyed by the Spanish or disassembled by locals who needed the stones for newer buildings. Machu Picchu is how it was when abandoned by the Incas and the reason is still a mystery. The agricultural zone, the residential area and the temples can now be visited by adventurers who dare entering the lost city. Ok, let’s not push it too far. The city when found a century ago was all covered by trees and bushes but the entire site has been cleaned up by the Peruvians and the site, protected by the UNESCO, can be walked as long as we respect the assigned paths and areas. As we got there very early in the morning, we saw the sun rising over the mountain range and spread its yellow light on the stone walls sitting peacefully on the ledges of the deep canyon lying below the great city.

Ok, you’ve dream enough now? Then let’s get back to some kind of reality regarding Machu Picchu. The lost city of Peru is visited every year by about 450,000 visitors and on some days it can be as much as 2000 visitors from all over the world making Machu Picchu the largest tourist site in Peru. Don’t get me wrong though, it is a really nice place to visit and is worth the travel. However, if you think you’ll end up in the middle of jungle with a guide to find the place you’ll be highly disappointed. Also, this is not cheap! The entrance to the site may be $50.00 per person but to get there and all the side expenses you’ll have to spend close to $200.00 per person if you’re careful. If you’re a bit looser you can always rent a room at the hotel that is built directly at the entrance of the site on old ruins and that cost only $2500.00 per night! Do the math and you’ll realize that the site brings easily over $100 millions to Peru every year in direct expenses and probably way more in indirect spending. Peru is poor and this is a hell a lot of money for them so you can imagine that they made everything they could to get as many tourists as they can up there and suck as much money out of their pockets as they can. This unfortunately takes a bit of the magic out of the experience!

For some reasons the government hasn’t build a road to get to Machu Picchu and there are a few options to get there. One is to take a 4 day trek along the 40 Km long famous Inca Trail through the mountains as long as you reserve your place three months in advance. Our legs not being in their Olympic shape of our early 20’s we did like almost everyone else and took a 2 hour train ride from the town of Ollantaytambo to the village of Aguas Calientes located at the bottom of Machu Picchu. The train is operated by Peru Rail who has the monopoly of the only path leading to Aguas Calientes. Kitching!!For the deeper wallets, you can buy a train ticket for $450.00 US dollars and they serve champagne during the 4 hour ride to Aguas Calientes but directly from Cuzco this time. For the entire Machu Picchu trip we got all our tickets booked by the other owner in Cuzco (not the ride with champagne of course) but the agency he uses for that was celebrating their 40th anniversary and everyone got drunk that day! As you can imagine, once we got in Aguas Calientes at 10:30pm the guide of the agency wasn’t there with our tickets and the hotel we had a room booked had no idea who we were. But don’t worry everything got sorted out and we got a room to sleep the 4 hours that we had left before leaving for Machu Picchu the next morning.

The Inca city of Machu Picchu is located at 7 Km from Aguas Calientes on the way up! At this point you can climb you way up but again, what most people do is they pay $7.00 and get on one of the 10 buses or so that shuttle between the town and the entrance of the site every 10 minutes. On the second picture you can see the path followed by the busses, this ride on itself is an interesting experience!
The pictures you saw at the beginning were taken around 6am when the herd of tourists was not arrived yet. At 11am the site is swamped by visitors and taking a clean picture of the site is virtually impossible. We got there very early in order to be able to get the pass to climb to Wayna Picchu; the steep hill you see behind Machu Picchu. The pass is given only to the first 400 visitors arriving on the site and they are all gone minutes after the opening of the site. Finally, we never went because we were not feeling very well that day. You see, the food in all the Inca Valley from Cuzco to Machu Picchu is terrible and our stomachs were just not happy. Nevertheless, this is a place that has to be seen and we are happy that did it.
One last note, to go back to Cuzco the guide told us to go to a certain restaurant to get our train tickets and so we did. To our surprise the tickets were there! Of course the seats were split apart but hey, don’t ask too much especially when you’re paying the big price. The train took us from Aguas Calientes to Ollantaytambo where a company called “Bus Lucy” was supposed to wait for us with a sign and bring us back to Cuzco. At this point you guessed it already; Bus Lucy was there indeed but had never heard about us. But the most amazing thing is that everyone we dealt with didn’t seem surprised at all by all this and would take us in at no charge and would just sort this out later between themselves. This is what I call institutionalized disorganizations!