Clint's Machu Picchu

Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu

To reach Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu Village), and gain access to the famous ruin itself, we must first ride the train down from Ollantaytambo. It is a journey of just over an hour on the day-liner. There are other trains that make the run all the way from Cuzco, and Melania and the group did it that way on the previous trip, but we are much happier to have stayed at the Albergue, and to be making the shorter run with the children this time. This is another fine example of how well Melania has organized the trip for us.

The day-liner coaches have a built-in engine and the driver is aboard the lead coach. The one we take has only two coaches, although some of the ones coming in from Cuzco are longer. There is also a luxury train, which we see parked at the station in Aguas Calientes, and there are local passenger and mixed trains that continue on down the valley past where we are bound.

The coaches of the day-liner are somewhat crowded, with overhead luggage space compromised in order to make room for curved-glass observation windows, which afford an excellent view of the mountains. We have taken only what we need for the two nights, leaving excess luggage with the good people at the Albergue. Good fortune is with us, and we are given the seats right at the front of the lead coach, next to the driver's cabin, so Joffre and Cindy have the pleasure of the unobstructed forward view as the train makes its way down the spectacular valley of the Urubamba. The tracks follow the river closely, often seeming to hang right out over the rushing waters. We pass through stone cuts and short tunnels, around turn after turn, passing clumps of cactus in bloom, and always with spectacular views of the steep slopes and mountains around us. As we draw closer to Aguas Calientes, the growth becomes more lush. We enter the cloud forest, and are treated to views of a wide variety of vegetation, including beautiful yucca-like plants that grow all the way up the steepest of slopes. We make a brief stop to let off some of the more ambitious passengers, who will hike the last few km of the Inca Trail into town. A few minutes later, we arrive at the station in Aguas Calientes.

I am thinking that, had I come here a few years younger, and unaccompanied by grandchildren, I might have tried the Inca Trail myself. It is a four day hike of some 40 km, through terrific mountain terrain. The hikers are required to have porters and a guide. They start the hike at the rail line part way down from Ollanta, and finish it at the Machu Picchu ruin.

Aguas Calientes is a bustling tourist town, nestled in the steep valley of the Urubamba at the very foot of Machu Picchu. The town itself is quite picturesque, with the river tumbling by below the main road, steep mountain slopes towering all around, and a steep Incan style street, pedestrians only, leading up through the shops and restaurants to the hot springs from which the town derives its name.

We walk through a sizable tourist market immediately after leaving the train station, and proceed down along the main road to our Hotel. Melania has chosen the last hotel on the road to the ruin, mainly to be as far away as possible from the noisier tourist area near the station. The El Sanctuario hotel is a fairly new building, described by Lonely Planet as being 'somewhat bland'. They also describe it as being opposite the bus stop for Machu Picchu, which it isn't. To catch the bus we must walk back to the top of the hill, opposite the train station. We check into the hotel and are given rooms at opposite ends of the second floor, which is actually the third floor. The rooms are reasonably nice, although the one Melania has seems to have a bit of a mold smell. That room has a good-sized balcony that overlooks the river, while the other room has corner windows that look out on the river, the tracks, the construction sight of a new hotel. And the road up to Machu Picchu itself.

This is, in fact, the only hotel in town that has a view of the road leading up to the ruin. Just below the hotel the river passes through a narrow 'V', where the railway enters a tunnel. Just beyond that point, the bus road crosses the river, and heads up a series of steep switchbacks all the way up to the ruin. From our hotel room we can watch the buses, dwarfed by the landscape, working their way back and forth up the improbable slope. Lonely Planet states that it is a distance of 8 km by road. As the condor flies, however, it is probably less than 2. There is, in fact, a foot path (stone stairs really) leading from the ruin down to the town. It takes a much more direct route to the bottom, crossing the road on every switchback. Local boys dressed in traditional costume will run down the path in sandals, waving at the bus at every crossing, beating the bus to the bottom, then boarding the bus to collect tips for the entertainment they have provided. Some of them do this many times a day. It makes my knees hurt just to think about it.

Once settled into the hotel, we go out for lunch, and find several open-air restaurants along the rail line a few blocks above the hotel. Once again, we are treated to up-close train watching, as we could literally touch the passing trains, had we reached out from where we were seated at the outdoor table. Melania is now battling the bug that Cindy had on the Andean Explorer, so she misses most of her meals while we are here, but manages to get up to the ruin all the same. On our first evening we walk down as far as the bridge on the bus road to visit a conservatory. It is located about 1.5km out of town. As we walk along we meet the last few hikers who have decided to walk down from the ruin. They look tired enough, it must be a fairly challenging hike. It is late enough in the day that we meet only the last few of the buses coming down from above. Just outside of the village, we hear a commotion across the river. We stop and look across in time to see a large flock of green parrots fly out of a treetop and settle in a little further up river. We reach the conservatory at dusk. It is the off-season for the plants, but is it still quite lovely, and we are able to beg a ride bask to the village with a group that is touring there and are being bused back. While we are there, Cindy spots a number of 'rodents of unusual size,' which we believe to be paca. After a meal of pizza just off the town square, we pack it in for the night, planning to rise early and go up to the ruin.

Our third guide of the trip, Berto, meets us in the hotel lobby, and we board a bus and head up to the ruin. We arrive early enough in that morning that the light is excellent, and Berto gives us a guided tour. The ruin is all that one would expect it to be; massive and beautiful, spectacular in fact. Melania and the boys take in part of the guided tour, then meet us at the end. We go for a terrific buffet lunch at the top end hotel situated at the gate. Then Melania and I take the boys on the bus back down to the hotel, while Steven and Cindy make the hike to the Sun Gate.

Melania is still not feeling well, and sleeps for most of the afternoon while I entertain the boys in the other room. Cindy and Steven thoroughly enjoy the hike, which takes them along some nerve-wracking drop offs and over the site of a recent landslide. The are able to get some terrific pictures of the hotel far below, the road winding up the slope, the ruin itself, and the local flowers. After their return we dine once more on pizza at one of the restaurants along the tracks.

I feel that I have not done justice to Machu Picchu, so early the next morning I board the bus and head back up while the rest of the groups goes to the hot-springs. I arrive earlier than we did the previous morning, and the site is much mistier. Once in, I make my way directly to the gate where one must register to climb Huayna Picchu, the steep and flat-topped mountain that overlooks the site. It is not my attention to climb Huayna Picchu, but rather the smaller 'Baby Mountain' that stands beside it. Either way one has to register and enter through the same gate, and only 400 people per day are allowed in. At this peak season, there is a significant line-up by 9:00 and the maximum is reached by 10:00. I arrive shortly after 8:00, and I am the 166th person to enter that day.

I find the climb difficult, not that it is particularly long, but it is steep. The trail is easily found, but the drop-off to the side is phenomenal, and the trail is narrow, and slippery in places. I find that I am having to fight off a sense of vertigo, and I am short of breath due to the altitude. After 10 or 15 minutes of climbing, I make it to the top, and it is all worth the effort. The early morning view of the site is positively awe inspiring. Heavy mists are moving up the slope to my left, and burning off into clear sky to the right as they move over the site. At times my view of the area is obscured completely, then suddenly I can see portions of it bathed in sunlight, then nothing but mist again, then clear. Over to my left I can see the same thing happening on Huayna Picchu, as the cloud moves up the one side and burns off over the top. There is only one other climber up there with me, so I have the spot pretty much to myself. I sit there enjoying the views for close to half an hour, then make the precarious climb back down. At the registration gate the line-up is huge. I walk to the other end of the site and climb to the top of the ruin where the Inca trail enters coming down from the Sun Gate. This is another spot that I did not manage to visit the day before, and I sit for a few minutes and enjoy the view from here. Then I make my way back down to the site entrance to catch the bus back to town. The same young boy as yesterday races my bus to the bottom, and I make sure to give him a tip.

Back in Aguas Calientes, I walk up the pedestrian street to the entrance to the hot-springs, and have only a few minutes to wait before the rest of the group comes out. Melania is feeling somewhat better, and we enjoy a terrific meal at one of the better restaurants, Indio Feliz, (excellent food; the broiled vegetables were terrific), then walk back to the station to catch our train for the ride back down to Ollantaytambo.

The threat to the Machu Picchu site posed by the flood of tourists is readily apparent to the observer at this peak season. The fleet of some 20 or so buses that shuttles the throngs up and down the mountain runs non-stop from pre-dawn until supper time. The trip takes about 20 minutes one way, more or less, depending on how many oncoming buses are encountered on the hairpin turns and switchbacks, and how many times one has to back up to let the other by after these bumper to bumper encounters. At the end of my visit on the second day, I was the first to board the bus, so I had a wait of about 15 minutes until it was full enough to depart. As I was going down at about 10:00 AM, the downward traffic was a trickle compared to the upward bound. During the 15 minutes that I sat there, five more buses arrived and unloaded, and we met at least another five on the way down. Each bus would hold around 40 passengers, so, if one does the math..... That would be about 400 tourists an hour going up there at the peak of the day. Lonely Planet indicates that UNESCO some years ago recommended that number as a daily maximum if the integrity of the site is to be sustained! Truth is, at about $25 US a pop for entry, the place is a real cash cow for the government, so there is bound to be a lot of resistance to restrictions. The staff do an excellent job of keeping the wayward tourists on the designated paths, but the task is overwhelming. In a bizarre incident described by our guide and corroborated by Lonely Planet, a beer company filming an add at the top of the intihuatana, or 'hitching post of the sun' bashed the corner of the rock with their heavy equipment and broke off a large chip, which had to be glued back on. The intihuatana is possibly the most important single feature at Machu Picchu. Unlike the rest of the structure, it is carved from the living rock, ie. still connected to the mountaintop, and is considered to be the major shrine on the site. I felt the same kind of tourist guilt here as I did when I joined the throngs standing around on the very roots of the giant sequoias, or was one of the millions per year gaping from the edge of the Grand Canyon. We are at real risk of loving these world-class tourist destinations to death.