We stayed the night before in the town of Aguas Calientes. This town was not as I had expected. It's possible that we have yet to visit somewhere that gets such a turnover of tourists everyday, but this place was like an Alpine ski village. And as such, not a cheap place to be. But I felt quite impressed by what Peru has done here. As my last blog explained, this is not an easy place to get to. In fact, I was expecting more of a dusty little town with a couple of overpriced restaurants. Suddenly I felt less sympathetic about the thousands of tourists stuck here a few months back during the floods. Not a bad place to be stuck. Perhaps that's harsh. After all, apparently some hotels did start raising their prices for their captive flood victims - the cheek!
No, there are many overpriced restaurants, but there are also many very nice looking hotels. Oh, to be rich. Nevertheless, our 40 Soles ($13 USD) a night hostel was just fine.
Whichever way you choose to get to Maccu Picchu, there is another little gem of information that you should know. Machu Picchu opens its gates at 6am, and in order to beat the "hundreds of American tourists" who, we'd been told by more than one person, turn up on the bus, we were advised to set off from Aguas Calientes at 4am and make the two hour hike up the mountain to the entrance.
So this is what we did, and again my camera LCD screen saved the day as we'd forgotten our torch. But even with a little light to help us in the pitch black, this was no easy walk. It actually only took us about and hour and a half, but it was constant climbing, the forest was extremely humid and combined with the early start, it didn't make the most enjoyable walk you're ever likely to do. Once at the top, we waited for the gates to open - (while you're waiting, get a ticket stamp for entry to climb Huayna Picchu. It's free but apparently they only dole out so many so it's best to get one as soon as you can).
About ten minutes before the gates opened what did we see but the first bus arriving and a load of sightseers climbing out out looking remarkably fresh. Hang on a second, we could have taken the bus. Little did we know the buses start making the 8km journey up the switchback road from Aguas Calientes at around 5.30am, meaning our hike didn't buy us the advantage we'd been led to believe. How long this has been the set up I'm not sure. Perhaps we should have checked this out for ourselves. Or perhaps a lot of people really like hiking in a dark sweaty forest with nothing to see.
In any case, we were amongst the first to enter the site of Machu Picchu. Six o'clock in the morning is when the place looks at its most mystical. The clouds had just started to break up and the sun was rising behind the mountains. We found ourselves a good spot overlooking the main city and sat in awe at the ever-changing view in front of us. It was spectacular. People arriving from a four day Inca Trail hike would have certainly felt rewarded by this (there's definitely an element of luck with the weather). Like any hike, it makes it all the more special if you have a prize at the end whether it be a crystal blue lake or an ancient city straddled atop a mountain. Either way, if you can get yourself a good spot early in the morning you won't be disappointed - and I would say all the better if you're not hot, sweaty and knackered just getting there!
There were many tour groups being led around, and while I'm sure their guides had some interesting wisdom to impart, I felt quite glad to be left alone to wander at our leisure. Our allotted time for climbing Huayna Picchu was between seven and eight am, so we headed over to get cracking with that. Huayna Picchu is another part of the Inca settlement sitting atop a higher adjacent mountain peak. It takes around an hour to walk up there but from the top the view of Machu Picchu is unparalleled.
After sitting a on top and having a spot of lunch we'd brought in (they say you can't take in bottles of water or food but ignore that), it was time to make our way back down. This is when you really realise that those with vertigo shouldn't be up here. We walked around the peak following signs that led down a different way than we'd come up. Then, the fear gripped me. A set of steep and uneven stone stairs led down the mountain with no hand rail and only part of a stone wall to steady you. And some of these stone steps weren't really steps at all in my opinion - these Incas must have had very small feet. One false step and you'd be falling off the side of a mountain. Of course, it's unhelpful to think of it that way. But that's the difficulty when you're hit by a fear of heights. However, the fear I seem to have developed in recent years is quite a rational one. If there was a hand rail, I'd have been fine. I've had the same feeling skiing in the past, and likewise, it's only a slight lack of confidence in my skiing technique that allows such negative thoughts to creep in!
Slowly but surely, I made it down from the peak and from then on the presence of hand rails put me at ease. I certainly wouldn't like to attempt all that in the rain. Those that have done long hikes to get to Machu Picchu might be put off by yet more climbing and hiking, but, if you can brave the dizzy heights of Huayna Picchu, it's well worth it.
However you want to do it, Machu Picchu is a spectacular sight. At 126 Soles ( $42 USD) entry, it's not cheap, but even though I've been saying it a lot lately, you can't miss it!
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