Cuzco/Agua Calientes/Machu Picchu, Peru

Tuesday and Wednesday, December 21-22, 2004:

This one is going to be relatively short (for this blog) on descriptive detail. Describing Machu Picchu, which sees nearly 1 million visitors each year, seems pointless and cliche. I took nearly 185 photographs of the ruins and the nearby town of Agua Calientes (Machu Picchu Pueblo), where I spent a night, but I have been unable to download them. Nonetheless, there are countless photos of Machu Picchu available on the web and elsewhere. What I saw looked no different (but yes, the reality of the place beats the photos).

[I spent much of the time between my arrival in Cuzco and Monday night (Dec. 20) wandering the town, taking in its sights (including the Inca museum) and hiding from postcard and puppet-finger vendors in cafes and bars where I could read my book (American Pastoral) and relax. Although previous posts may make it sound like I dislike Cuzco (and am extremely grouchy), I started to warm up to it once I learned to deal with all of the aggressive touts and sales people. Once you get a few blocks away from the very touristy but beautiful Plaza de Armas, things get far more relaxing and mellow. There are fewer crowds and lower prices and you feel like you are in the "real" Cuzco where you are more to the people you interact with than just another gullible walking dollar-sign. On Monday afternoon I signed up for a one-day tour of Machu Picchu with a tour company called United Mice. I had been unable to leave for the site on that day, as I had originally planned, because the train ticket sales office had been closed on the day before. After some additional thought, I decided that an organized tour with a knowledable guide would be worthwhile, though I arranged to return to Cuzco on my own the following day so that I would have that next morning to go back to Machu Picchu at sunrise to explore the ruins independently and at my own pace.]

I woke up at 5:00 AM to catch the economical "Backpacker" train to Agua Calientes at 6:15. The four hour ride took us slowly east across the Andes, past farms and snowcapped mountains. Although the train was crowded with budget travelers, it was relatively comfortable and quiet. In anticipation of our destination, people seemed to talk softly and excitedly.

We reached the little town of Agua Calientes at approximately 10:30. Few buildings rise above two stories, permitting stunning views of the mountains rising all around. A rapidly-flowing and rocky river splits the town in two and snakes it way through a valley that leads to the mountain of Machu Picchu, only several kilometers away (the ruins are named after the mountain on which they stand; Machu Picchu means "Old Mountain," while the other mountain that looms ominously behind Machu Picchu in most photographs is Huayna Picchu, which means "Young Mountain").

I met my guide and the other members of my group just across a narrow wooden bridge from the spot where the train disembarked. The guide led us to a line of waiting coach buses that would take us along the 8 kilometer road that zig-zags up Machu Picchu to reach the site of the ruins. Although the price of the roundtrip bus ride to and from Machu Picchu was already included in the price of my tour, I noted that it costs roughly $10 --- the same price one could pay for a 15-hour trip from Lima to most other destinations in Peru (including spots nearly 1000 miles away). It seemed that the local transportation gurus were not ignorant to the cash-cow they had on their hands.

The road to Machu Pichu snakes up the mountain in a series of winding "U"s. At each new level, the view of the river valley below and the green mountains stretching around and in the distance becomes more extraordinary. Although there were traces of fog this far up, there were clean, clear stretches of sky where one could see for tens of miles to where wide expanses of the Andes were covered in fields of pale snow.

Our bus stopped in a small parking lot that sat outside a series of gates and several restaurants. There was a luxury restaurant, a cafe, a baggage facility and a small hotel. The place did not lack for modern comforts (I noticed that the main restaurant charged nearly $16 for a buffet lunch) and I was worried, not for the first time, that the ruins would be overly touristy and feel like a "Disney-fied" fraud. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Our guide led us through the gates, up a hill and then up a series of stairs and inclines. All at once, the ruins were in front of us as we looked out on it from the highest onsite vantage point. A white mist rolled gently through the broken temples and buildings and, further up, across the peak of Huayna Picchu.

The tour lasted for nearly two hours, the guide taking us to the various religious sites and temples first (including the sun dial, which had been chipped in one small spot several years before due to a mishap with a crane being operated by a company shooting a TV beer advertisement, of all things; fortunately, this led to a bar on any further commercial use of the site --- or so officials say), then showing us the residential areas. I had been worried that there would be a crush of tour groups at the ruins, but the guide told us we were very fortunate, even for the "low" season, which we were currently in. While Machu Picchu can receive 4,000 or so visitors each day in the high season, he doubted that more than 400 were on hand that day --- there were probably less. This meant that I was able to take plenty of photos unobscured by people in sweatpants, white sneakers and Mickey Mouse hats.

My group left at approximately 2:00 PM to get back to Agua Calientes for lunch and a return train to Cuzco at 3:30. I stayed behind and eventually settled myself down on one of the green terraces to read for a while (Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer --- I cannot recommend it enough, despite a few rough spots). Llamas and alpacas grazed on the grass nearby.

I returned to Agua Calientes at approximately 4 PM and spent some time wandering around before checking in at "Hostal Joe." Joe (or whoever he was at the counter) told me there was hot water in my room but, of course, there wasn´t. It was freezing river water, instead. Rather ironic for a place in a town called "Agua Calientes."

I had dinner at a highly recommended restaurant called "Indio Feliz." The chef is French and the meal was a French interpretation of standard Peruvian dishes. At an exhorbitant (in Peru) price of $10 for three courses, it was excellent.

I woke up at 5:30 the next morning and took the first bus to the ruins at 6 AM. There was no mist, no fog. It was sunny and clear and deadly silent. There were only another 40 or so people with me at that point. I could hear only the chirping of birds and the roar of the river below. Wandering through the ruins, I felt so serene that I was briefly filled with the impulse to stand on the edge of the mountain and scream "Serenity Nowwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the top of my lungs, a la Frank Castanza of Seinfeld. Rest assured that I did not do this.

After a few hours of quiet, leisurely wandering, I passed the "sacred rock" and through the gate that leads to the trail to Huayna Picchu. I climbed the steep, rocky path up the mountain for nearly an hour until I came, huffing and puffing from thin air, to the ruins at the summit. From there, Machu Picchu looked like a series of toy houses below and I would guess that visibility reached at least 40 miles, if not more, in every direction. On the way down (only 20 minutes) I passed several people who made remarks about my shoes. I hadn´t thought about it, but I was hiking around in a pair of thin Italian loafers. Those who didn´t think I was insane were impressed. The truth was that I had simply been oblivious.

I left Machu Picchu at about 11:00 AM, just as most of the crowds began arriving (these were people who had taken the trains in for the day that morning). I didn´t leave because of them; I left because I had spent enough time there and wanted to check out the hot springs after which Agua Calientes is named. I still hadn´t had a hot shower, afterall, and had to catch a return train in the afternoon.

The springs are a 15 minute walk from the town center, along the river. The facilities are basic and the several pools are surrounded by swarms of thousands of a species of fly I cannot identify (its wings fold in, giving it a long, narrow profile). The bottoms of the pools are sediment, though the sides are tiled. With all of the dead insects floating in the water, I did not stay for very long. I went to a nearby pizza place for lunch and, at 3:30, took the train back to Cuzco. I sat with an English couple that was traveling for several months, part of that time with a tour company that was taking them all over Peru. A member of their Peru tour group, a very exciteable Malaysian-Londoner, came over and started talking with us. He could not get over the length of my trip and decided that he had had enough corporate work (though I did not catch the exact capacity) and was going to quit to travel. I told him I would not be responsible for his actions (though I egged him on).

I finished Everything is Illuminated shortly before it got too dark to read. At one of the towns an hour away from Cuzco by train, I disembarked to catch a bus the remainder of the way into down. It was an extra $1.50 but the ride took only 20 minutes. There are a series of switchbacks around Cuzco and this slows the trains down a great deal. Thus, a man comes around on the train to advertise the fact that you can shave 45 minutes off the return by changing onto the bus. This got me back to Cuzco by approximately 7:15 PM.

In closing, I can only say that the visit to Machu Picchu was one of the high points of my trip so far. A number (though a significant minority) of people I have talked with or overheard seem to be let down by it. Some claim that the architecture is unimpressive for a 15th century site. If this is the case, I question why they spent they time and the money coming in the first place --- its not like a little research wouldn´t have revealed the nature (and plenty of pictures) of what they were going to see. I find the site fascinating because it is the best preserved of the Inca ruins --- and only because it lay hidden from the outside world until it was discovered by the American (and future Senator) Hiram Bingham in 1911. Had the Spanish conquistadores found it, it would have been decimated along with nearly everything else they laid their hands on. Some people who took the 4-day Inca Trail seemed not to appreciate the site when they arrived because they were too exhausted by the time they got there or because the weather was bad that day (in particular, too much fog). In this regard, I was glad I went by train and spent the extra day in Agua Calientes. I was thereby able to see the site twice, with different weather conditions on each visit.