Inca Trail Day 4 - finally Machu Picchu

In some ways this last day was a bit of a disappointment. I spoke to the company, Llama Path, about it afterwards and was just told - this is how it is done. The day consisted of an early rise, some waiting around, a mad dash to Machu Picchu followed by a whistle stop tour and then lots more waiting around.
We were woken at 3.30am. The logistics are that the chatskis need to pack everything up and then run down the mountain to catch a special train at 5.30 am to take them back to Cusco. Having had breakfast we made our way to the gate of the campsite, which does not open till 5.30. We were in a sort of tunnel with vegetation on both sides so no views, and more and more people joined us from pitches further away at the campsite. There are supposed to be permits for only around 200 tourists each day, but it seemed like there were more there. We were waiting at the gate for around an hour.
When the gate opened the sun was starting to rise. I had the tripod on me but with the pressure of people behind trying to get down the narrow paved and slippery path there was not a chance of using it. This was compounded by the fact that Saul the guide wanted to leave Machu Picchu by 10.30 and needed us down the hill in a hurry - around 1280m in around 2 hours.
I did take one dawn picture but it was handheld.

My guide book did say that it was best to leave 15 - 30 minutes behind everyone else, and if I did the trail again I would go solo on this stretch if necessary as the scenery is so attractive. The path is paved and steep with a long drop off to one side and after rain slippery. There is also a stretch where you have to do a bit of scrambling.

However it is beautiful. You are going through primeval cloud forest and there are orchids and other flowers on the side of the road.

After a couple of hours we came to the Sun Gate, Intipunku, which I did not photograph as it was crawling with people. From here you get the first glimpse of Machu Picchu nestling in a saddle on the mountain sheltered by Huanya Picchu.

As we got closer the sun hit it and we could see the River Urubumba snaking around the mountains. It is really something out of the 'Lost World' and what I had always imagined, as a child, that the Andes would look like.

As we got into the site there was a vantage point to take pictures of people

Cheryl Don and Joseph

Saul and Irving

You then have to leave Machu Picchu by the main gate above the terracing and come in again through the turnstiles to have your permit checked and your passport stamped!

I suppose the problem with taking pictures of a well known monument is that it has all been said before. At the end of this blog I'll post all the general views I took, including some Lensbaby photographs I thought might give a more original cast. The views over the mountains were staggering

Machu Picchu was rediscovered by the American Hiram Bingham in July 1911. Bingham was working as an explorer with a grant from Yale University and was looking for the lost jungle city Vilcabamba where the Incas were thought to have sheltered after being defeated by the Spanish. The local people were still using the terraces for agriculture but the buildings at Machu Picchu had been taken over by the jungle. Bingham had been told of ruins by a farmer who lived around an hours hard walk away and who was eventually persuaded to take Bingham there. It was finally  a peasant farmer's small son, Pablito Alvarez, an 11 year old Quechua boy who guided Bingham into the snake infested undergrowth where he saw the first houses and then was astonished by the fine stonework of what is known as the temple of the three windows.

Bingham was not the first person to have been shown Machu Picchu. Three Peruvians had left graffiti here in 1901 and some English missionaries had also claimed to have seen it. However Bingham decided to return the following year for a more extensive investigation. Bingham never found gold at Machu Picchu but he did find skeletons and pieces of pot which he transported back to Yale  (with the permission of the Peruvian government). These artifacts should now be back in Cusco under an agreement reached last year.

Machu Picchu is believed to have been built by the Incan king Pachacutec in the middle of the 15th century. Pachacutec had usurped the crown from his brother in 1438 and then expanded the Inca territory to stretch from Quito in Ecuador down to northern Argentina and across to Lake Titicaca and possibly into western Brazil. The purpose of the site is not fully understood. Bingham had found a large number of female skeletons and had thought it was some sort of convent. Later it was discovered that the number of male and female skeletons was equal thus debunking this theory. It could have been some sort of country residence for Pachacutec. Saul's theory was that it was a type of 'university' where royalty and priests would be educated in to religion and astronomy. The site was abandoned by the Incas (their numbers already depleted by a smallpox epidemic) at the time of the Spanish invasion, and they took all their possessions and fled deeper in to the jungle.  The Spanish never found the site so they did not deface it as they had done other Inca sacred places.

The site is fed by springs from the top and these were used to irrigate the terraces which could provide food for four times as many people as Machu Picchu would have contained.

The site is arranged with the sacred places at the top and then further down the habitations and then the store rooms.

We started out tour with the Sun Temple or Torreon, a huge tower rising from the natural stone. At the winter solstice (June 21st) light from the rising sun streams through the window seen below and illuminates a rock on the floor of the temple.

The Torreon

A staircase to the side of the Torreon took us up to the Sacred Plaza. To one side we could see the quarry where all the stones came from to build machu Picchu. In the Plaza are two temples, including the Temple of the Three Windows and a stone thought to represent the Southern Cross.

The 'Principal Temple'

Stone portraying the Southern Cross

Underneath the temple of the sun lies a mysterious area where the mummified bodies of Patchacutec's ancestors may have been kept. The steps symbolised the kingdom's of heaven earth and underworld.

To one side of this is the Temple of the Condor. The Incas worshipped condors and if you look at the stone below you can see the ruff of white stone surrounding the condor's head. The pair of rough rocks rising up at the back are thought to be the wings of the condor. I have taken the liberty of cloning out the ropes that surround it.

The Condor Temple

Further up the complex and on a separate platform, there is a large carved stone which is known as the Intihuatana or hitching post of the sun. The Incas believed that at the winter solstice the sun needed to be tied to the earth to stop it from forsaking them altogether. This was done at the festival of Inti Raymi which is still celebrated. The Spanish damaged every intihuatana they came across at other Inca sites but never got to this one. It has been shown that this stone is very carefully aligned and is in the very centre of the bowl of peaks surrounding Machu Picchu. It was probably have been used astronomically.

Coming down the complex further there is a grassy area which normally has llamas grazing on it.

Walking to the front of this we got to the residential area and also the site of the 'Sacred Rock' which was probably originally polished.

The sacred Rock

The llamas seemed to have made their way down in to the residential sector

Here are are some general views of the residential sector. The stonework on houses for the royalty was more refined than for others.

Rob and Sue

In this area there were two perfectly round structures filled with water that may have been used as mirrors to see the night sky.

Here are some more general views of Machu Picchu, followed by the Lensbaby Composer ones.

Saul had shown us round the sacred sights and had then left. Before we attempted any more we sat down on the terracing for about 30 minutes feeling absolutely bushed. The Bostonians had gone to climb Huayna Picchu. It was apparently pretty scrambly and we were quite pleased we hadn't signed up for it. After then looking round some more we decided to leave. The place was filling up as day tourists were coming in and getting rather cluttered. We went out through the turnstiles to see the plaza and bus station thronged and long queues for the toilets.

We caught the bus down to Agua Calientes, a rather ugly little town next to the Urubamba. Here we were due to meet up with everybody for lunch at a restaurant. We were early so we hung around for a bit and then ate. Naomi didn't feel very good so Mairi and I went out for a walk around the town. It is from here that the trains run back to Ollantaytambo and Cusco, and they pass through the main street.

We also walked down to the river, which looked as if it was in full spate. In the rainy season, early part of 2010 the river flooded the town and landslides cut off Machu Picchu until the April. Locals and tourists had to be airlifted out.

Late afternoon we boarded the train to Olluntaytambo. It was a great journey although Naomi was feeling worse still, I think compounded by the long day and the dash down the mountain.

We saw the bridge where we had started out 3 days previously. We finally got on to the bus in Ollantaytambo and reached Cusco around 8.30pm and back to the hostel for a long sleep.