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It was a bumpy flight in to Cusco and we are stuffing bunches of cocoa leaves in our mouths, as this is another high altitude city known as the gateway to Macchu Picchu. We get a taxi who tries to charge us way over the odds for the short trip in to the centre. No change there then. It's a large city and we are staying two blocks away from the main square in a hotel/spa. Unfortunately, the spa is not currently open. We can really feel the thin air here as we head out immediately to secure our Macchu Picchu tickets. There is a maximum number of permits per day, which stands at 2,500. We have read in Lonely Planet, and on Trip Advisor, that we need to sort these tickets before booking the train tickets (call us wimps, but we know we are not fit enough for a 4-5 day hike in high altitude!) We have decided to sort the trip ourselves rather than pay the extortionate rate being offered with the tour companies. We had tried to secure the permits online, but after many attempts we gave up feeling extremely frustrated. The site in English fails half way through and when using the Spanish site it fails when you try to pay by Visa. For such a huge tourist attraction they certainly make it difficult to get permits.
The office for the permits is on the other side of town and nowhere near where you buy the train tickets. We walk amongst the fumes of the passing small collectivo buses, but once there it's all quite hassle-free and we buy tickets for Friday.
Back to the main square, we go to the Peru Rail office to buy the train tickets and they can get us there on Friday, but there are no seats left to return the same day. We leave there deflated, but see another office advertising that they sell rail tickets. Office is maybe a little oppulent a word for the tiny smelly room we go into. The guy with the black teeth basically looks at the same website we have previously seen, so of course there are still no return train tickets available. He says there will be no problem in changing the permits for Saturday, when return train tickets are available, but there may be a small fee. He offers to take us back there the following day and sort our permits for us. We book through him, as we will have a bus to collect us from the hotel and drop us back there. This, at least, will save us from having to walk to the collectivo bus pick-up and fighting to get on a bus to get the train station in time for our 06.10am train. Still, it is a 3.30am pick-up from our hotel, as it's almost two hours on the bus, then another two hours by train and another 30 minutes on another bus to the entrance of Macchu Picchu (so, naming Cusco as the 'gateway to Macchu Picchu' sounds a little exagerrated).
Cusco is a lively place with lots of tourists. On the downside, these must equal the number of street sellers who are constantly hassling you to buy their Peruvian wares or go on a tour with them. It's also a pity that there are so many cars with black plumes of smoke pouring out of them making the air even more difficult to breathe. However, it has an impressive, picturesque main square dominated by the church, a cathederal and two-storey colonnade walkways with ornate wooden balconies. The town has character and a good lively buzz to it.
This site was less about the ceramics and tools and more about the Inca architecture. Those Inca's sure knew how to build stonework! The precision of their stonework is outstanding. Once the richest temple in the Empire, the walls of the courtyard were covered with sheets of solid gold and housed life-sized gold and silver replica's of llama, corn and a massive sculpture of the sun. Mummified Inca Kings were said to be brought out into the sunny courtyard everyday and offered food and drink. The word for Qorikancha in Quechua (the local dialect) means Golden Courtyard. Of course, on arrival, the Spanish swiped all this lot too and demolished most the temple to make way for a catherdral and convent. Multiculturalism was not high on the agenda for Europeans in the sixteenth century! We have learned in our travels that the Incas did not have a written system and little was recorded before many of them, and their culture were effectively whipped out. (At least the British carefully recorded what was there before they nicked it). It seems that much of the stuff in guidebooks is educated guesswork, rather than recorded fact.
A Graduation ceremony parade was being held in the square with teachers and students recognisable in their field of study by hard hats, stethoscopes, lab coats etc. A brass band was playing and there were dancers interspersed in the parade in colourful traditional dress. There were beaming smiles all round, and very interesting to watch from the comfort of a pub on the corner.
There is an abundance of night-life in Cusco and, luckily, some of the best places are in spitting distance of our hotel (it's absolutely freezing at night!)
After three months of travelling we are really craving a Thai green curry. We find this in a bar close to our hotel. Not only was the curry divine, but it was eaten to the soundtrack of Baggy Trousers by Madness - perfecto!
On the flip side, there was the cuy meal! Cuy to most people is a cute fluffy little animal you keep as a pet. In Peru, it is a national dish and we decided we should try it before we leave Peru. Well, the brave one of the couple tried it, while the other had a juicy, safe fillet of alpaca. We were waiting in anticipation, when -'ta-da'- there is was in all it's glory - a whole guinea pig with a red chilli stuffed in it's mouth to dress it up a bit! The waiters had gathered round to see the expression on the westerner's face and they were not disappointed. Her hysterical laughter at the sight of this 'rat' on a plate brought other diners around too, asking for the ultimate photo!
After some time of staring at it's head, teeth, claws and rib cage, visible through it's plastic looking brown skin, the waiter took it away and said he would prepare it. Thinking this would come back as just a few fillets of meat on a plate, alarmingly it just came back with it's head lopped off and it's body in quarters. Although being told the best way is to eat it with your hands, this was not going to work, due to the amount of bone and other things lurking under the skin that didn't look edible. Picking at the sparse meat, it tasted not of chicken, but lamb. This perception could have something to do with the mint leaves stuffed inside. After picking at it for a while, looking at the head became too unbearable and all the efforts went into eating the delicious dauphinous potato, although that lost its appeal as it was being overlooked by the ugly head of the what really did look like a rat! Tick - done that one, but probably not one on many people' bucket list!
Black-toothed Benito was, typically, not there in agents 'office' in the morning when he promised to help us sort our revised MP permits. We went on our own and, thankfully, we had no trouble changing them for the Saturday and were not charged any additional fee.
The next day we wake at 3.00am and by 3.30am we are in the lobby waiting for the bus. We had been told it could be there anytime from 3.20am - 4.00am. We had heard from two other girls that often you book a bus that does't materialise. So, as we are waiting in the cold lobby for over half an hour, we start thinking about a contingency plan. The driver then calls to say he can't get to our street, as it's full of party-goers, so we have to walk down to meet him. The night-man at the hotel kindly walks down with us to make sure we find him.
We do, and its dark and cold, and the bus rattles along for what seems like an age until we finally get to the train station in Ollantaytambo. We ask the driver where our tickets are for the bus in Aguas Calientes and he assures us someone will be there the other end with a sign with our names on. On the train our seats are not together, so we swap with another couple who have also beenn given seats apart. Although the train is taking us through some beautiful scenery we struggle to keep our eyes open and doze for most of the journey. We arrive in Aguas Calientes two hours later and, of course, no one is waiting for us with our bus tickets.
We walk down to where we see buses lined up and a local tourist information guide gets in touch with the person who should be meeting us by calling the number on our receipt. She turns up ten minutes later and pays for our bus tickets. She tells us our guide will be at the entrance of Macchu Picchu several times, despite us repeatedly telling her we haven't booked a guide and want to walk around on our own. The drive up to the entrance is along some steep dusty roads winding up the mountain. We try not to look down the sheer drops and instead up at the steep escarpments all around.
At the top, when Steve eventually winds his neck in about paying to use the bathrooms (extra if you want toilet paper!) we go through and are met with an amazing sight. Not only are the Inca ruins a mind blowing sight, it is the surrounding steep mountains towering up around us that shows how incredible this village is, stuck remotely on top of this mountain.
This site was first discovered in the 1860's by two German adventuters who were more interested in looting the site (with the Peruvian government's permission) than trying to discover more about it. In 1911, Hiram Bingham, a North American professor, who was interested in the Incan culture, together with a translator, travelled to the Sacred Valley of the Inca's along the Urubamba river. They stopped along the way where they met a farmer who told them there were some old ruins on top of the mountain Macchu Picchu (meaning old mountain). He was given a coin for his trouble and a child of a farming family then led them to the archeological remains. On arrival, he couldn't see much of the ruins, as they were covered in so much thick vegetation. However, determined to find out more about it, he returned many times with teams who hacked their way through the dense overgrowth. Then more delicately excavated the site to eventually, four years later, uncover all the ruins. While doing so they also unearthed the start of the Inca Trail leading from the site. Archaeologists are not much closer today in understanding what Macchu Picchu was used for, but focusing on the exceptionally high quality stonework, abundance of ornamental work and its location, leads them to believe it was vitally important as a ceremonial centre.
We walk up to the caretakers hut, which is the highest point to look over the ruins. We just stand and stare out at the awe-inspiring sight, feeling humbled by what we see. To the left we see the Inca Trail coming over the top of the mountain and think how it must feel to walk in the footsteps of the Incas, and what a spectacular sight it must be from that height after four days of trekking. Only a momentarily though, as the thought of blisters, aching legs, heat exhaustion and not having a shower for four days, outweighs any of that! Infact, those who have done the trail collapse on the grass exhausted without having a chance to take in these wonderful sights.
The various ruins have been identified as temples, ceremonial baths, agricultural terraces, residential sectors, prison cells and the caretakers hut. Apart from being a guard house, they also believe the hut was used to mummify the nobility. There are lots of details on each of the ruins, but as it's all based on speculation we'll leave it there.
We spend almost four hours walking around the site and marvelling at how they were able to work to such exacting standards when building this remote site. The mountain is steep and the stones would have weighed a ton, the tools would have been basic and the work so tough. (No donkeys, bulls or horses to carry the stones = no need to invent the wheel). In the rainy season Macchu Picchu is closed to visitors as the cloud hangs low over the mountain tops and the daily heavy downpours make it too dangerous to walk there. No doubt the Inca's would have no choice but to continue working in these terrible conditions at high altitude, another reason to appreciate what tough lives the Incas had and how immense Macchu Picchu is.
The steep cone shaped Wayna Picchu sits opposite and you are also able to climb this mountain up to more ruins. The whole scene must be breathtaking from the viewpoints there.
We are happy that we have done this independantly, as we see large groups being herded around and half of who probably can't hear the guide and his speculations anyway.
What spoils it, are so many tourists not giving you five minutes peace with 'can you take my picture?' and thrusting their cameras at you. Getting someone to take your photo is so last year. Haven't they heard of selfies.
We leave with a photo image in our heads to try and remember the awesomeness of this 'Wonder of the World' and agree that it deserves to have this title.
Back on the train and we are not seated together again. Suzanne has a lady falling asleep on her shoulder, while 'Stevo' is playing cards with three young Aussie guys. Yes, he really was called Stevo within three minutes of introducing himself.
Thanks to the racket of the card sharks, Suzanne stayed awake for scenery. There was snow on the peaks and the rugged hillside rising up above soon turned into softer hillside where the farmers were working. In fact, the whole family, including very young children, all seemed to have a job to do and were working hard. It was a sobering sight to see and you apperciate what a priveledged life we lead. After the train pulls in to Ollantaytambo we are back on the bus, which is really just a collectivo and we are squashed in to bursting point with Steve having hardly any space at all. However, the scenery runs by like a National Geographic programme and takes some of the discomfort out of the never-ending journey back in to Cusco.
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