Machu Picchu

Okay, so those of you who know me relatively well could probably assume that I do not believe, and have never believed, in a heaven/hell dichotomy. I am perfectly comfortable saying that after having been to Machu Picchu and Aguas Calientes twice, I am becoming more and more convinced that those two places exist in order to convince skeptics like me that, if nothing else, there exist Heaven and Hell on Earth.

I've been to a lot of unpleasant places (any number of gas-station bathrooms, for example), but nothing quite sends my blood to a boil like the horrible tourist Hellhole more benignly referred to as Aguas Calientes. Seriously, it is the worst. As soon as Moira and I got off the train on Friday night, we were swept into a horrible mob of crazed hostel employees trying to nab any tourist in sight, drag them up the hill to whatever hole-in-the-wall joint, then charge them an exorbitant amount of money to spend the night drenched in sweat and listening to the deafening noise rising from the street below. Everything there will cost you an arm and a leg, and there isn't anything to do except bury your head in your hotel pillow praying for dawn and an early check-out.

So come 3:30 am on Saturday morning, Moira and I were ready to get out of Hell on Earth, and head to Machu Picchu. Now, there are two ways of getting to the Lost City of the Incas from Aguas Calientes: you can either walk several kilometers up a steep grade of stone stairs pounded into the side of the mountain, or you can catch a few more hours of rest and doze for half an hour on a bus that will shuttle you to the top. Which one did we bright, young, and eager college students choose? The answer should of course be obvious--whichever one was cheaper.

For a whopping seven soles (which were used to buy a flashlight), Moira and I toughed it up and started the trek up the mountain along with about a hundred other crazed souls a good two hours before the sun even had the chance to think about rising. Neither of us had really eaten anything (I had a Larabar), but we figured that our tough Colorado blood would help us power through. After an hour and a half, well past the point when we started ignoring our nausea and the jelly that had replaced our knee joints, we made it to the entrance of the park. Only when we stopped moving did we realize how cold it was (made significantly worse by sweat, but we don't need to go there). We waited for an hour in line, bundled up as best as we could manage, until finally the gates opened up at 6:00 am and we all crammed through the checkpoints in a sleep-deprived daze.

It was just starting to get light out as we made our way across the ruins to the entrance of Wayna Picchu, the mountain that sits behind the city in all of the postcard photos of Machu Picchu. Only 400 people get to climb it a day, 200 between 7:00 and 8:00 am and the rest between 10:00 and 11:00 am, so you have to get in line fast before all the spots are taken. We were the 60th and 61st people in line for the 7 o'clock time slot, and once we had our tickets, we finally had the time to start walking around the ruins.

You know, as tired, hungry, and bitter as I was about having to ever go to Aguas Calientes in the first place, all of that just melts away as soon as the sun finally rises over those jagged Andean peaks and breaks through the morning fog, casting that beautiful gold, early-dawn light on the city's hill of terraces. If you ever get the chance to go, you'll see what I mean about Heaven on Earth.

So we sat by the Temple of Sun (how appropriate), and took our first moment of relaxation in a good several hours. It was so wonderful to just be able to sit there and take it all in before we embarked on yet another climb. We wandered around those expertly-built stone walls until 7:55, when we began our ascent up Wayna Picchu.

Maybe it was the fact that we had already climbed so much that morning, or maybe it was the hip-hop I had going on full blast, but getting to the top of Wayna Picchu was not nearly as grueling or tiresome as I remembered it being last year. No complaints about that, of course. We got to the top in a little under an hour, stopping to take photos along the way. It was incredibly crowded that day, but we got the chance to stay up there for an hour until the second group of people was let in.

I encourage any and all of you, if you are willing and able, to make it to Machu Picchu and undertake that climb. I know it may sound hokey, but it's no wonder the Incas were able to become such a strong and thriving civilization in such a relatively short amount of time. There's something about being in a place like that that makes you feel as though you're operating on an entirely different frequency than the rest of the world. It's pure, unchained natural energy at its most potent and beautiful. I wish we could've stayed up on that mountain for hours and hours, because it's rare to find peace like that anywhere in the world I'm used to inhabiting.

Anyway, after taking another hour or so to descend, Moira and I spent the next few hours wandering about, taking naps on the terraces, and just generally enjoying the atmosphere. The only damper on the whole situation was how little we had to eat (at that point, an energy bar and a half and two pieces of bread for each of us). We finally decided to leave around two o'clock, having been awake for eleven hours and having been on-site for eight.

Any reasonable folks probably would have sucked it up and paid the 21 soles for the bus ride back to Aguas Calientes, but not me and Moira. Oh no, we're cut from a stronger brood than that. We managed to take another hour in the descent, after having lost most of the feeling in our legs, and stumbled into Aguas Calientes two hours before our train's scheduled departure. We split a Gatorade, drained in about fifteen seconds, then went to find something to fill our tummies.

I know that those of you who read my blog last year are going to roll your eyes at this, but neither of us had enough cash to pay for any food (...or the bus rides). The ATMs in town were both lacking any plata when we got there, so we had to find someplace that accepted VISA. Anyway, we ended up going to one of the many ubiquitous pizza joints in town after haggling their prices down to something reasonable, and then each ate a pizza in approximately five minutes. Phew. Of course, when we went to pay, our waitress kindly informed us that their credit card reader was broken. Luckily I had 15 soles and two dollars with which to pay for the meal, but ugh. That town is just filled with bad experiences waiting to unleash themselves, so after our meal, we headed straight for the train station to get out as soon as possible.

We ate some banana bread as we waited, took an uncomfortable nap on the train, and arrived in Ollantaytambo around 7:30. From there, we took a taxi colectivo back to Cusco, where we rolled in exhausted, famished, and freezing. I should have mentioned that both Moira and I have been ill with head colds for the past few days, so after a good eighteen hours of being awake, we were ready to knock back a few Tylenol PM and drift into sweet, painless slumber.

So that was our weekend. We are now back in Cusco, better-fed and somewhat rested, and our sorting out of plans to go to Lake Titicaca and Arequipa to round out our South American excursion. See you soon!