Erika was fortunately starting to feel better when we woke up in Ollantaytambo on the day of our train ride up to Aguas Calientes. Which was excellent, as we were a day away from Machu Picchu, long one of the most important points on this trip!

Our train was leaving just after noon, so Erika wanted to spend a little time walking around Ollantay in the morning. We headed down the main road, to the entrance to town, where awaited the old Incan entrance to the town, “Punku Punku.” Punku Punku is a stone gate, and translated just means… door door. Yeah, it sounds better in Quechua.

It was a phenomenally gorgeous day, perfect for a walk and for pictures of door door!

Oh, Alvaro…

We started to head back to the town square, so we could get some Gatorade before we had to be at the bus station. We hadn’t walked far from Punku Punku, however, before we noticed a fanny pack in the street, getting repeatedly pummeled by the minibuses coming into town. Was that there when we walked in? We didn’t remember it. Did it get dropped from a minibus? Did those people we passed a few minutes earlier drop it?

We waited for a break in the cars coming in to step out into the cobbled street and grab the bag. Inside, we found a USB solid state drive that miraculously had survived the vehicular assault. Within a plastic bag, we found a bottle of bug spray that hadn’t. Then, we checked the outside pocket. And found a passport.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

Well this just got more complicated. It was a Spanish passport, owned by a newly-minted 30 year old named Alvaro. Apparently, Machu Picchu was a 30th-birthday trip, because the previous day was his birthday. We walked back into town, swinging the fanny pack prominently hoping Alvaro might see it, while staring intently at the few other people out and about to see if any looked like the passport picture.

Back in the square with no sign of Alvaro, we spotted what looked to be a police officer. Turns out, he wasn’t–just some local security–but he helped take us over to the tourist police station. They whisked us quickly inside, and Erika started making a formal statement about our find.

This was taking a while. And we were under an hour until our train left. I fidgeted nervously as the officer meticulously and slowly typed up the report. When he started going through the bag to make a catalogue of everything inside, I suddenly had a nightmare vision of him finding drugs in there, and our day getting a lot longer.

There weren’t any, fortunately, but we were still running out of time. I decided to leave to go get the drinks we needed, while Erika hopefully finished up. I got the drinks, got back outside the station, and got out my broke-ass phone to try to text Erika.

“Outside,” my phone allowed me to type and send to her, 37 minutes before our train left.

“K, be there soon.”

I waited impatiently as the minutes ticked by. I pulled my phone out again.

“Ooh,” I said to her 29 minutes before our train left. No, I didn’t, I said “Wtf”; my phone decided to backspace all that, though, and say “Ooh” instead.

“They’re printing it for me to sign now.” A couple minutes later she was finally free and we were out of time. We no longer had time to walk to the station, so we jumped into one of the tuk-tuks in the main square and said “get us to the train station, and make it snappy!”

“Estación de tren, por favor” is what we actually said.

We got there, and showed our electronic tickets from our email. Nah bro, you need paper tickets, the attendant said. It was Spanish, I’m paraphrasing. He was incredibly kind and helpful though: he ran with us over to the office at the other end of the platform, looked up our tickets, and printed them as well as our return tickets. Thank you sir for your kindness! We ran back to the other end of the platform and boarded our train.

The train ride was lovely, the cabin full of windows offering plenty of spectacular views of the towering mountains around the sacred valley. About halfway, you basically cross a magic line between the drier, temperate climate of the Cusco area, into the much wetter, jungle climate around Machu Picchu. This point is helpfully announced over the PA on the train, but you can see it in the changes to the plant life. You can also feel it as soon as you arrive in Aguas Calientes.

In Aguas Calientes, we hit the ATM (three times, I think, we just had to keep going back for some reason), got our tickets for Machu Picchu the next morning, checked into our hotel for the night, and went out for dinner.

We’d seen on instagram that our friends we’d met in Copacabana had been to Machu Picchu a couple days before. During dinner, we were talking about them, wondering if they might still be around or if maybe we’d see them back in Cusco. Hilariously, Erika looked up and spotted them outside our restaurant, checking out the menu. We spent the rest of dinner with them, then walked with them to a bar they were going to spend the evening at watching a Brazilian futbol game. We said goodbye, and went back to our room to turn in early for our Machu Picchu trip.

The Last Leg of a Lengthy Journey

To that point, to get to Machu Picchu, we’d:

• Taken a plane to Cusco
• Taken a taxi downtown
• Taken a minibus to Ollantaytambo
• Taken a tuk-tuk to the train station
• Taken a train to Aguas Calientes

And we still weren’t there. There was one more step: a 20-minute bus ride up the mountain to where Machu Picchu finally awaits.

We’d woken up early–but not too early–to make sure we’d gotten into Machu Picchu within the time window our tickets allowed. Our Copacabana friends had said that the line of people waiting for the first buses out, in order to see the sunrise, was pretty gnarly–apparently a kilometer long. We couldn’t care less about seeing the sunrise there, so this wasn’t an issue, and by the time we got to the bus station it was a breeze to buy our ticket and jump onto a bus, without wait. We’re off to the citadel!

The ride up the mountainside is pretty harrowing, the road hugging the edges of sheer cliffs. Truthfully, it didn’t feel all that scary to us though. Talk to me when your bus is also taking on oncoming traffic on the curves of that road, like we’d done in Colombia. It’s a beautiful ride too, switching its way back and forth and always overlooking Aguas Calientes. When you get near the top, you can finally get your first glimpses of the citadel.

When you get to the entrance, it feels like the entrance to any other tourist attraction in the world. There are vendors, ticket stands, the smell of diesel from the buses, tour guides trying to get you to take their services, and of course an uncomfortable number of tourists. There’s definitely nothing magical about the place at this point.

We’d read the place is really best seen with a tour guide, and that the guides you can hire out front are generally very good, so we went about hiring one. After some shenanigans and back and forth and working on prices, we ended up with our guide, Alfredo, and started making our way inside. Bottom line up front, though, Alfredo was fantastic, he did a truly great job.

After clearing the entrance, we made our way up the path, thru some trees, around a corner, and then, finally, after all this time–

Machu Picchu!

This was truly magical. I don’t say that about a lot of things, and it’s kind of crazy considering how frequently you can see Machu Picchu in pictures or video. But something about being there and seeing it laid before you, perched on the hilltop like it is, surrounded like it is by the mists and mountains… it’s awe-inspiring. And this isn’t even the best view!

Alfredo took us on a 2-hour walking tour of the citadel that brought life to what otherwise would have been just stone walls and structures. Beautiful, no doubt, but with the guidance you can imagine the thatched roofs on the houses, the form of the small houses where families lived, the crops and flowers on the steppes of the hills, the Incan workers criss-crossing the main square in town. At one point you walk into a four-wall area and there are two circular platforms filled with water. “Huh,” you’d say without some other form of guidance, and walk on to the next area. Alfredo told us these were star mirrors, used by the Incans to observe and track the motion of constellations.

One of the most famous and impressive buildings at the site is the Temple of the Sun. The intricacy of the architecture is astonishing, the careful way the stones were carved to interlock with each other. There are two small windows cut into the temple which are tools for determining the summer and winter solstices–on the day of each solstice, the sun will rise and shine fully and completely through the appropriate window.

Alfredo left us after the 2-hour tour, with suggestions for what else to do with our time there. We chose, after lunch, to climb the hill at the top of the citadel, walk all the way out the Inca trail to the Sun Gate–Inti Punku–then come back for the iconic view and pictures of Machu Picchu that everyone recognizes from TV.

I would like to point out that, even though things felt very crowded and touristy at the entrance, once inside the ruins it never felt crowded. You always felt like you had plenty of space, there never seemed to be too many people around. It wasn’t anywhere near the elbowing of a place like Iguazu Falls. It was really a lovely experience.

Inti Punku – The Sun Gate

The climb up the hill was tough; the walk down the Inca trail less so, as while uphill, it was very gradual. Erika’s knee was behaving itself, which was really fortunate. I guess all those days stuck in bed sick were good for something!

If taking the full Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu, the Sun Gate is the first point where you lay eyes on the citadel. Standing amidst the ruins of the Sun Gate, you can imagine Incan travelers plying their way up this trail. You can also imagine how rewarding it must be, now, to make your way up the Inca Trail–whether it be a 1-day hike, a 2-day hike, 5 days, or more–to pass through that structure, and see Machu Picchu for the first time.

We had to stifle some disappointment that, due to our only having three knees, that wasn’t our experience.

Taking a break and enjoying the views while out at the Sun Gate, we overheard some members of a tour group that had come up the Inca Trail.

“I’ve just always wanted to see this, and I never thought I would,” we heard an older man say, trying but failing to hold back tears. We couldn’t help but eavesdrop.

We heard as he told the younger woman he was talking to how he’d fought and beat cancer, but that it looked like a dear friend of his wife’s wasn’t going to be as fortunate. Saying a prayer for her there, he repeated again he never thought he’d get to see this place.

“It’s just magical,” he said, wiping a tear. The awe and wonder in his voice were heart-warming, almost childlike. We had a lot of feels then, too.

And it’s weird to say, but Machu Picchu is like that. Being somewhat unsentimental, there aren’t many places I’ve been that I feel have that sort of wonder. Natural wonder, like Perito Moreno glacier, sure; man-made wonder, like the skyline of New York City, okay. Machu Picchu is something different, and is worth seeing with your own eyes.

Post Card Views and Llamas

After drying our eyes, we made our way back up the Inca Trail, back to where it enters the area of the citadel. It’s from here that you have the iconic view of Machu Picchu that everyone knows and recognizes–from TV, from post cards, from the internet. With my handy Nikon, I took my swing at capturing that iconic shot:

It was late in the day, the sun was getting ever lower, and there weren’t many people left touring the site. There couldn’t have been a better time to take in this view.

Around this point, there were also a number of llamas out doing their job: mowing the lawn. We’d seen attendants leading the llamas around, directing them to areas of grass that needed mowing. It’s pretty fun, and totally adorable. Erika was understandably taken with them, and got a lot of pictures:

Solving the Riddles of the Ruins

I’ve played decades worth of Tomb Raider games, so I was pretty sure I knew how to get through this place and get all the treasures. First, I managed to find a cave with a nice little cache of arrows.

I made my way around the edge of the ruins, when I came across a beast! With my new arrows, I was able to slay it.

Next was this pathway, which I knew would be booby trapped with poison darts. I ran full speed across it to avoid the darts as they shot behind me.

On the other side I found the lever I was looking for. I pulled it; the ruins behind me filled with water! I could reach that cave halfway up the walls that I couldn’t reach before! I turned around, made my way to the ruins, and made a perfect swan dive off the side.

But before I made it, the timer had run out and the water drained away. I swan dived instead into the rocks below.

Sigh. I hit the reset button and tried again…

Leaving, For Now

After I got the timing right and made it into that passageway before the water could drain away, we made our way back out of the ruins. We took the bus back down, had dinner in Aguas Calientes, then took a late train back to Ollantaytambo, where we stayed for the night.

The next day, we were hoping to do a 10 kilometer hike thru the sacred valley, that starts outside Ollantaytambo and finishes in the town. However, Erika had used up all her stored knee-power at Machu Picchu, and it wasn’t ready for another day of hiking around. So we just took the minibus back to Cusco, where we had one more night before flying out.

We hadn’t really wanted to stay at the same hotel as last time thru Cusco, due to the room kind of being crap, and we were worried the breakfast there was what had set off our GI issues. But, Helga and Franz were there, so for the sake of simplicity, we booked there again. This time, though, we opted for a room that was a whole $6 more per night.

And it was far, far better!

It had natural light. It had an enormous bed which I dubbed ‘Inka-size’; it looked like two queen size beds pushed together. The faucets didn’t hack and spit when you turned the water on. And it had a heater!

Machu Picchu was a fantastic trip. We really, really wish we could have done the trek we’d booked, but even doing the more ‘normal’ way, of trains and buses, was more than worth it. 

Peru is a wonderland of outdoor activities, and it was killing us we wouldn’t be able to do much of them. But, it just meant there was plenty reason to come back, and we’ve already decided we’re definitely coming back to Machu Picchu–and to Peru more generally.

What’s Next?

There’s still plenty to do and see with only three good knees. Next, we were coming down in elevation some and heading to Peru’s second largest city, Arequipa, where the promise of good food awaited us.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures from our trip to Machu Picchu! It’s a stunning place to see in person and worthy of the attention it gets. Peru is doing, I think, a lot of good work in trying to protect the site, limiting access to it and such. Hopefully it’s worthwhile.

Come back soon to read about Arequipa!