Date of Entry: October 13th 2016
Date of Writing: December 17th 2016
Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been out of Brazil, and as I discover in my first days in Peru where I will spend a week with my close friend Ben and his awesome girlfriend Azi, it’s also been a long time since I’ve spoken Spanish. Plus I’ve learned Portuguese in the process so the brain ends up taking a few days to fully switchover.
This trip is a brief getaway for a week in southern Peru acting as something of a tour guide. We spend our first night in Cusco where Ben and Azi stay in a very fancy hotel and me at Milhouse Hostel, though we enjoy a great dinner together at Fuego burger restaurant near the plaza de armas before going to see my old friendJaime at Vertigo Travel about a block from the plaza de armas to organize our trip. In one week we’ll be doing Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, Rainbow Mountain and the amazon. A crazy frenetic pace but it will all be awesome.
It’s because of this crazy pace that for once I forego the cheaper option and we wake up before 5 am to take a taxi to Ollantaytambo for 75 soles (22 USD) and about an hour and a half later we’ve dropped our bags at our cozy little guest house (Tumy house bnb) before climbing into a crowded tuk tuk or mototaxi (10 Soles) to the train station where we get in line and wait for the second train of the day to leave for Aguas Calientes ( the town just below Machu Picchu).
What follows is a beautiful roughly two hour train ride which costs an absurd 68 USD each way we’re getting off at the train station at Aguas Calientes and heading down to the bus line to get up to Machu Picchu as quickly as we can. The bus is roughly 12 USD each way but otherwise it’s a hard 90 minute walk up a not so beautiful road and we don’t have time to spare. I buy the tickets while the others wait in line and by the time I’ve got the tickets we’re on our way up to the mountains and the incredible Incan ruins that are Manchester United.
A 20 minute bus ride later we’re climbing up some steps, flashing our passports and stepping inside the over touristed but still utterly incredible Machu Picchu. I’ll admit that even having been here before and almost a second time I still feel a fresh wave of awe sweep through me as we get our first glimpse of the Incan city. It’s beyond beautiful and Ben and Azi seem even more blown away.
As you can see above we’re quickly greeted by a collection of Llamas sitting and looking towards the towering green pillars of mountains the surround Machu Picchu. As my father says, the reason machu picchu is so impressive can be expressed in 3 words Location, Location, Location.
Getting to one of the main stairways I follow my own advise, cutting towards and leading Ben and Azi up out of the main city towards the trail to the sun gate. There’s more tourists about in the morning so it really is best to save the heart of the city for the late afternoon. Our train back isn’t until around 9:20 so we can stay until the 5-530 closing time of the site. That said we don’t B-line to the sun gate, of course we stop to take lots of pictures.
We continue up out of the city huffing and puffing a bit, Azi less than me and Ben less than Azi and then hang a left onto the sun gate trail which is pretty much all uphill. It’s still an easy enough walk, but it will certainly get you’re heart racing. We press onwards up and up away from the main city and towards the sun gate which if you do the very expensive and hard to book last minute inca trail will be your first viewing point of Machu Picchu below you. Ben and Azi are very excited still. While Azi has travelled quite a bit ben hasn’t been out of the US and Canada since he was 5 years old and I’m trying to use this trip to help him to better understand my recent life choices.
Eventually we make it to the sun gate at the end of the trail after a brief stop for some illegally smuggled early lunch halfway up at a quiet patch of the trail. No food is allowed to be brought into Machu Picchu, but I don’t feel bad because not only do we make sure we leave absolutely nothing behind, I also spend most of the day picking up what pieces of garbage I find on the trail.
At any rate getting up the inca trail I get ban to snap a few explorer like photos of me before we settle down at the edge of the little structure up there for a well earned rest while gazing down on the glory of what was once an important city in the vast kingdom of the Incas.
Eventually we decide to head back down towards the city and things get a little weird. I’d love to say I’m sorry these photos exist, but I’m really not at all, and Im proud to say Azi responds well to my sillyness and the strange relationship ben and I have based on a very successful rap group we were both in known worldwide as the Authentics and often appearing in any reputable list of top 5 hip hop artists in history.
As we reach the area just above the city again I go to take a photo with the Doll of herself Renata has given me to travel with who I call Renatinha only to realize much to my dismay she’s not here, I’ve left her somewhere along the trail to the sun gate. Ben and Azi agree to wait and I reluctantly drag my overweight body back up the exhausting trail pausing for a few photos only when I’m out of breath.
Thank goodness I find her up where we ate lunch, someone has taken her and put her on the wall shrouded in what I assume is some sort of strange Incan doll burial ritual. Either way I’m glad to have her back.
Thrilled and relieved I head back down the trail quick as I can not wanting to make Ben and Azi wait any longer that they already have.That said when I see some Llamas perfectly positioned I have no choice but to take a paint me jack or two before returning to my friends.
That done I approach Ben and Azi from above and behind, snapping some photos of the picturesque couple sitting together staring out at the lovely green mountains all around us.
Together again at last we decide to head up to the Incan bridge since the city is still looking pretty crowded. On the way up I snap more photos of what must be in the top few most photogenic ruins in the world as Ben also experiments with Incan stairs. This plus a few more Llama encounters makes our walk up to the trailhead quite enjoyable.
The walk passes quickly enough and for whatever reason I don’t take many pictures and soon enough were heading back the way we’ve come and plunging down into the center of the city which by mid afternoon is slightly less like an anthill of tourists making it much more enjoyable to wander through.
Down in the city I find myself once again marvelling at the sheer size of some of the stones used by the Incans in the construction of Machu Picchu.For me it’s impossible to fathom how and why they built this place without the aid of modern technology. Just utterly fascinating.
By about four oclock we decide we’re burned and bitten enough (the sandflies are utterly vicious much as they we’re when I walked to Aguas Calientes with Sara, if you are coming at this time of year make sure to cover as much skin as you can) and we decide to head out and bus down to town for some well earned games of cards, pizza and for Ben at least, pisco sours. I’ve taught Ben and Azi Yaneef an awesome Israeli card game so passing the four hours until our train is no problem at all.
It’s about midnight by the time we make it back to Ollantaytambo and grab the craziest and least powerful moto taxi ever back towards our hotel. The nice pair of teenage drivers can’t quite find it so we end up walking from the Plaza which is fine. From there it’s quickly to bed because we are all utterly exhausted.
Visiting Machu Picchu a second time and actually making it to the ruins was a genuine pleasure and doing it with one of my best friends and his super cool girlfriend who I totally don’t hate for stealing ben from me was super cool and while it’s still not my favourite site in south america it is well worth you’re visit. If you’re heading that way check out my post that breakdowns everything you need to know about getting there cheaply and easily. Either way it was a great day even with the sandflies, sunburns and expense and set a great tone for the coming week which soon you will all see was full of adventure and a genuinely great trip in my estimations. Stay tuned.
