Friday, May 19, 2006

I slept so well last night. No rocks under me, no sleeping bag twisting around me, no backpacks tipping over onto me, just softness and comfort and warm blankets. So when the alarm went off at 4:15 this morning, I was confused and angry. But there's no missing Machu Picchu, especially after all the effort it took to get here. And my legs were miraculously free of soreness after just one night in a real bed.

Michael and I got to the meeting spot at the restaurant in time to eat our toast and omelets and tea and walk to the bus stop with the others. Everyone showed up except for Gerry, who had been sick last night and was apparently still feeling bad. It seems so unfair to be sick on your big trip to Machu Picchu, especially when you don't have time to recover and try again.

It was still dark when we reached the mob around the bus ticket office. Tickets were six dollars US for the half-hour ride, more than a night's accommodation. But they know they have us. We all paid, even those who had talked about making the walk up from town to the site. The road to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes is an unpaved series of dusty switchbacks and I was embarrassingly glad to be sitting in a nice, warm bus and not trudging along the edge of the road in the cold darkness.

The sky lightened as we drove, and it was daylight when we poured out of the bus and up the stairs to the end of the long line of people already waiting to get in. It wasn't just a line, it was this pulsing mass of excitedly jabbering gringos in their mixtures of techy fabrics and alpaca hats, and Peruvian guides struggling to corral everyone along the charming little stone walls of the ticket office.

"It's like an amusement park," I said. "Incaland." Michael liked that joke so much he used it twice. Without giving me credit. Which is the kind of thing that happens to you when you're a low talker.

The price of our trek included a two-hour (or three-hour, it varied depending on who was doing the telling) tour of Machu Picchu. We met our guide for the day, Victor, who handed out the short ticket forms that needed to be filled out for entrance. We also met two middle-aged ladies who had signed up for the trek but then worried that they wouldn't be able to do it and decided to just meet the group in Aguas Calientes.

The ladies asked Michael and me if we thought they could have done it. It's so tough to say. Probably they could have. They looked to be in good shape and probably most people in reasonably good shape could do it. But it's not a trek to be taken lightly, that's for sure. We finally got to the head of the line, had our tickets stamped and then torn and then we were in.

Machu Picchu! Michael, who had been mentally wrestling with special photographer issues of light and crowds and timing at Machu Picchu since the first day of the trek, decided to take off immediately for the Hut of the Caretaker, from where the classic postcard view of the site can be shot. The light would be better at that time of the morning, and the photos would be more striking without the mobs of people to come later. The rest of us went off with Victor to begin the guided tour. Despite the mayhem at the entrance, the ruins seemed fairly empty.

Victor took us to the least interesting place he could find, some nook among the stone walls where not much was visible, and began a long lecture on the twelve Inca leaders, followed by an even longer lecture on Hiram Bingham, first white guy to discover the site. It took forever. Please do not get me wrong. History is very interesting and important. But we'd walked four days to get here, and gotten up before dawn to get here first, and now we were not being allowed to experience the object of all our efforts. At least let us stand where we can see something!

Finally Victor led us to a more interesting spot, the Temple of the Sun, and his lecture improved drastically. Looking up to the Hut of the Caretaker, I spotted Michael and we waved at each other. He and a dozen others were perched up there just taking in the site in the pale morning light. The rest of the tour was good, but I wished Michael would catch up to us. He finally did, just a short time before our group was dismissed.

Michael and I were happy when Joseph showed up. Happy because we like him, but also because we did not want another tipping discussion like the previous two, and had decided to tip the guides on our own. We especially wanted to show our appreciation to Joseph for his kindness and patience, and we did not want it watered down by other people's stinginess.

So we slipped him 50 soles (about $15), along with the eloquent speech, "Thank you for your patience and for nice when we are slowly." He seemed happy with both and gave us each a warm, two-hand handshake. I was afraid I was going to cry. Seriously, Joseph was super nice and in a lot of ways he was the one who made the trek as good as it was. If we'd had some mean, impatient person back there while we were straggling it would have been miserable, despite the amazing scenery. We planned to tip Milthon on our own as well, later in the afternoon, before he got on the train.

The group was scheduled to take the 4:30 train back to Cusco, but Michael and I had arranged to stay in Aguas Calientes for another night. I just felt like all the walking it took to get there would be cheapened if we were back in Cusco on the same day we finally reached Machu Picchu. Like the walking had been an artificial obstacle that we'd created for ourselves. And it was artificial. But no need to ram it down our own throats. So we'd asked United Mice to buy our train tickets for tomorrow instead of today, and last night we agreed with the hotel manager that we'd be staying one more night. The room was a bit over budget, but it was nice, and the convenience of not having to change rooms made it worth it.

After saying goodbye to Joseph, we walked over to the line of people waiting to sign in to climb Huayna Picchu, that small mountain that juts out from behind the ruins. Only four hundred people per day are allowed to make the climb, so you have to show up early if you want one of those spots. We were well in time, but didn't know if we actually wanted to do it.

We had no water, and didn't know if we felt up to an hour's climb after Salkantay. Also, the trail is so narrow and at times slippery that people have fallen right off the mountain and died. I worried that those behind me might not have patience when I am slowly and there might be problems.

So we decided to climb the even smaller mountain, Huchuypicchu, instead, and we were glad we did. It's only a twenty to thirty minute climb, and the best part is we had both the trail and the summit all to ourselves. Except for a few minutes when an Austrian couple showed up, but they were nice enough to take a photo of us. The view from up there was great, mountains on three sides of us, and Machu Picchu below. We've seen a lot of mountains on this trip, but the Salkantay trek and Machu Picchu are the first times we've seen them from across, rather than below. Like we were their peers.

We also saw the line of people climbing up Huayna Picchu like ants, and I was glad I wasn't part of that line. Later we talked to different members of our group who had made the climb. One said the view was amazing, one said that Machu Picchu looked too small from up there, and one said that the top was so crowded that there was a guy stationed up there just to decide who'd been sitting up there long enough and kick them out to make room for the newcomers.

We took our time on our private little mountain, and when we went down we had lunch at the site's entrance. We chose the outdoor, wildly-overpriced-for-Peru-but-pretty-reasonable-by-US-tourist-attraction-standards cafe over the air-conditioned, wildly-overpriced-even-by-Disneyland-standards buffet.

Sitting under the umbrellas and eating our sandwiches, we eavesdropped on enough classic Inca trail walkers to be glad we hadn't done it, at least not in the high season. It just sounded so incredibly crowded. I really liked the solitude we had on our trek. I understand that the Inca trail offers a multitude of other Inca ruins to experience, and I'm sad we missed out on that... but not too sad.

So we spent the whole day at Machu Picchu. We walked around some, but we mostly just sat and looked and felt amazed that we were there. Doing the trek made me feel like I'd really earned the right to be there, and it felt nice when the place started emptying out at around 3:00 and it became more private. I even took a little nap on the terraces beneath the Caretaker's Hut, just me and some llamas, chilling. We closed the place down, leaving after 5:00 p.m. and feeling sad to go.

We did not walk down the hill, we took another $6 bus ride. It seems a lot of money for such a short ride, but I didn't care, especially when I saw how dusty the trees were along the edges of the road. All that dust is kicked up by passing busses, and I didn't want to walk in all that. I just wanted to sit and rest, and reflect on our wonderful day at Machu Picchu, a highlight of the trip, then go back to our room and get ready to have a nice dinner, ordered off a menu and everything. The food on the trek had been good, but I was excited by the idea of picking whatever I wanted.

Alas.

Our hotel manager met us on the street, smiling, shaking our hands, so pleased to see us. Michael told him all about how much we'd liked Machu Picchu and the manager was very glad we'd liked it. Then he told us that unfortunately he'd made reservations and someone was waiting for our room, but if we'd just walk with him, he'd take us to his other hotel and we could have a room with separate beds for just a little bit more money.

Michael was willing to be reasonable about it, but I was not interested. I wasn't going to argue - it's this dude's hotel, if he wants us out, we'll go. But I'm not going to his other hotel. Yeah, he had a reservation - with us, that we made last night, even though it was a bit pricier than we'd wanted. The whole point of paying the extra money was to avoid the pain in the neck of moving, and if we had to move anyway, no reason for him to get our money, rather than someone who didn't screw us.

So we stormed past the two wide-eyed backpackers who were waiting patiently at a table and may or may not have known we were being kicked out for them, and went into our not-room and collected our stuff. After a short search we found a nondescript but clean little place for a few soles less. Michael had his wits about him and when registering, he bargained the checkout time from the absurd 9:00 a.m. to noon. We are very ready to sleep in after the past five dawn and pre-dawn days. Oh, and we missed Milthon, but we'll stop by the United Mice office when we get back to Cuzco.

**

So that was our Salkantay Trek to Machu Picchu with United Mice, which I recommend highly. As I mentioned in the beginning, I tried to make it as detailed as possible so that people could get an idea of what to expect from the trek/tour. I deliberately did not include discussion of the history of the site or meanings of the structures, because the entries are pretty long already, and anyone interested can easily get that information elsewhere, volumes of it, detailed and footnoted, whereas it's somewhat harder to find out what the visitor's experience is like.

 

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Machu Picchu - that classic postcard photo.

Line to get into Inca World, 6:00 a.m.

Llamas, Machu Picchu.

Me on top of Huchuypicchu.

View of Machu Picchu from Huchuypicchu. The brown scar on the left is the mudslide that closed the trail from the Sun Gate.

The mountains surrounding Macchu Picchu. View from Huchuypicchu.

Some girl came along while Michael and I were chilling here (below the Hut of the Caretaker) and said we should let her take a photo because the view behind us was so stunning.

Proud llama, Macchu Pichu.

Doorway, Machu Picchu.

Inihuatana, "Hitching Post of the Sun," Machu Picchu. Each of the four corners indicates one of the cardinal points (NSEW) and predicts solstices.

This chip in the Inihuatana, was made in 2000 by a crane mishap during the filming of a Cusqueña beer commercial.

Me having a siesta at Machu Picchu.

Another angle of the postcard view.