Machu Picchu Day Two
Just in case we couldn’t see anything when we arrived at the end of the Inca Trail, we’d decided to stay a night in Aguas Calientes and return for one more day amongst the ruins of the citadel in the sky. Waking at 4.45am to hear torrential rain pummelling the hostel roof didn’t bode well for the rest of the morning, but we dragged ourselves out of bed and went to catch the first bus up to Machu Picchu.
We were the first off the bus and by now light drizzle had replaced the cats and dogs that had woken us up. But the ruins were still draped in mysterious gloom, and from our first vantage point at the Guardian’s Hut we sat and waited for the murk to lift.
We were soon joined by this morning’s contingent of Inca Trailers who all looked thoroughly cheesed off with the weather conditions after they’re own hard slog through the jungle and over the mountains. But after an hour or so the outlines of buildings began to appear, along with spooky Llamas peering from terraces and steps around us.
We had some “breakfast”, by which time the ruins had all but cleared of the mist which clung only to the steep mountainsides upon which Machu Picchu sits. Very spectacular, and still with relatively few people around (8.30am) we felt privileged to once again be in amongst the Inca’s city.
The objective today was to try and climb Huayna Picchu, or ‘Young Mountain’, the peak that provides the backdrop to most of the famous images of Machu Picchu. While Eug was up for it, Em’s knees needed a day off, and so we went our separate ways, with Eug signing in at the guard’s hut and Em finding a place to sit and people watch.
The climb begins by actually going down, which is always a bit of a downer (if you’ll excuse the pun!) since it means you’ve got extra to climb to regain the altitude you once had. But, hey ho, the sun wasn’t scorching yet, and while the first stages of the climb were steep and the views around gradually becoming more and more spectacular, having done the Inca Trail nothing could be more difficult. Or could it??
Soon the climb became so steep that the Park Officials had installed steel and rope handrails for much of it, for which Eug was grateful since he no longer had the use of the walking poles. The trail switched back on itself frequently, giving a feeling of the edge of the world on one side, straight down to the Rio Urumbamba, and the closeness of the vertiginous mountainside on the other, still dripping with the rain droplets of this morning’s downpour.
Frequent breaks for air and water eventually brought Eug to the bottom of a very very steep Inca stairway, at the top of which stood the first ruined building. These steps are precarious to say the least!! The Inca’s appear to have had very tiny feet since the width of each step seemed no more than a few centimetres deep, while the gradient of each step was very steep indeed. And the useful rope and steel handrails had gone! Without looking back, for fear of vertigo, Eug concentrated on each step at a time and made the sanctuary of the ruined building.
Passing straight through to the other side of the building, a further staircase of around one hundred (broader) steps led to the pinnacle of Huayna Picchu, and without thinking about the drop to one side Eug climbed these and came to the top-most terrace. Not wanting to miss out on reaching the “proper summit”, a collection of haphazardly arranged boulders perched on the very summit of this mountain, he climbed a sloping slab and gingerly tip-toed across two boulders to find his own resting place.
WOW! What a view!! It had taken 45 minutes to climb to here but every moment was worth it for the bird’s eye perspective this mountain afforded on the ruins below. There was little room to move around on these boulders without threatening life and limb (and the legs were shaking with fear in any case!), but it didn’t matter – a trip to Machu Picchu cannot be complete without a trip to the top of Huayna Picchu.
Fifty minutes of soaking in the panorama (and fighting off vicious ants that were trying their hardest to topple people from the boulders!), and it was time to go down. The Inca stairs were the most terrifying aspect of the descent, where so easily the eye could be drawn towards the bottom of the flight and the mind take over, giving a feeling of being sucked off to the valley floor below. But, 1,288 steps down and we were reunited, with yet another great collection of pictures to remind us of the Inca citadel in the sky.
Tags: Peruvian tales
mihai