Macchu Picchu escalarons
Today we woke up at 5:30 in the morning to take the bus up to Macchu Picchu. Laura was a little sick so it was hard to leave the beds. We had gathered some food the night before so at least we had breakfast. There were a numbe of women selling banana bread and coffee to the people who hadn´t thought ahead. We eventually found our guide amist a large group of people and were dismayed to learn that she hadn´t bought our tickets even though we´d given her our student ID cards the night before so that we could get a discount. She told us the that the comany had not sent her the money and that we would need to buy more tickets and figure it out later with the company back in Cuzco. We felt that she should have to figure it out with her own company. Luckily there was another guide with her who helped us buy tickets and was able to call the company to get the money. Unfortunetely our student ID cards were expired so we didn´t get the discount and had to pay 80 soles(35 dollars). This was by far the most expensive thing we had done here.
We rode the bus up a narrow road with switchback after switchback. It didn´t seem particularly safe because buses coming the other way would frequently be coming fast towards us on the narrow road. The drivers seemed to be able to slow down and pass each other on the tiny road with a minimum of backing up.
When we reached the park I convinced the bathroom guard that I shouldn´t have to pay because I was only going in to take off the long underware I had on under my pants,which were still kind of wet from being washed in the sink the night before. (On a random side note a new special pair of travel quick drying underwear I bought at REI on the way to LAX started to mold when I set it out to dry in Lima. Maybe if it were black instead of white I wouldn´t have noticed the mold. )
Anyways as I was changing the same man came in the women´s bathroom while I was changing. I´m not sure if he was doing it on purpose or not. I made it out though and went up a flight of stairs to the postcard picture point.
After than we started wandering around the terrances while we waited for our guide to come back and start the tour. Laura decided to do yoga on these cools stairs that protuded out of the walls and I chased multiple baby llamas and managed to feed one of them.
Yoga.
After the llama adventure our tour started. We decided to take a Spanish tour to help us learn more because it has been so hard to practice in a super touristy place where there is so much English. I think that we both understood a fair amount. She told us for example that three steps carved into a rock represented the three layers of the world, the earth the sky and maybe water or hell or something(my Spanish isn´t that good). Laura wasn´t convinced that they really served religious purposes. In fact she is skeptical of everything that people claim is religious. She thinks they probably carved steps into the rock to help them go up. Then we continued through the main gait after waiting awhile for a group of girls on our tour to take pictures. Our guide showed us a rock that was perfectly aligned with north and was in the same shape as the constellation of the southern cross. I think I´d been able to find the constellation the night before and was really excited to learn about astronomy. Seeing new stars down here is really exciting and I tried to ask the guide if she knew where alpha centauri( the closest star to the earth at 4 light years) was but she hadn´t heard of it. She also showed us small pools of water which reflected the stars for the Inca.
<>Reflective pools for star observing. I don´t know why they couldn´t just look up.
The rock in the shape of the Southern Cross.
The Inca had special rocks aligned to make special shadows during the summer solstice (which is not in June because we are in the Southern Hemisphere, a kind of confusing point in Spanish).
We also saw the temple of the sun where Hiram Bingham(the explorere who rediscovered Macchuy Picchu in 1911) had found some tombs. The picture is more notable for me looking like an arab with my special mosquito repellant hat.
After the tour was over we started to climb up Hyanu Picchu the tall mountain the background of all the typical Macchu Pichu shots. The steps were carved into the moutain, making a seemingly impossible climb only moderately scary. It was however pretty difficult and someone asked me if I was a smoker because I was breathing hard. I wanted to ask him if perhaps he thought it was the altitude and the 200 steps I had just climbed and not a result of a bad habit. The top of Hyuano Pichhu had more great views of snow capped volcanoes, the Inca trail and Macchu Picchu. Laura and I tried to take some action shots in our Patagonia shirts for the cataloug.
An action shot for Patagonia.
Laura climbing around(but also kind of faking it)
Laura climbing up slab.
I got to climb around on some really nice granite that made me want to go climbing really badly. It was nice to be able to move around on the rocks so easily. After climbing down a ton of stairs with people passing me left and right because I was primarily using one leg we wandered around a little more but mainly laid around and absorbed the view. The Andes were just a spectacular as the ruins. Afterwards we took a train back to Cuzco, massaged our sore legs(or leg if you are me and only used one all day), and ate an entire package of crackers because we hadn´t really had a chance to eat except at the exobiantly priced Macchu Picchu lodge.
We rode the bus up a narrow road with switchback after switchback. It didn´t seem particularly safe because buses coming the other way would frequently be coming fast towards us on the narrow road. The drivers seemed to be able to slow down and pass each other on the tiny road with a minimum of backing up.
When we reached the park I convinced the bathroom guard that I shouldn´t have to pay because I was only going in to take off the long underware I had on under my pants,which were still kind of wet from being washed in the sink the night before. (On a random side note a new special pair of travel quick drying underwear I bought at REI on the way to LAX started to mold when I set it out to dry in Lima. Maybe if it were black instead of white I wouldn´t have noticed the mold. )
Anyways as I was changing the same man came in the women´s bathroom while I was changing. I´m not sure if he was doing it on purpose or not. I made it out though and went up a flight of stairs to the postcard picture point.
After than we started wandering around the terrances while we waited for our guide to come back and start the tour. Laura decided to do yoga on these cools stairs that protuded out of the walls and I chased multiple baby llamas and managed to feed one of them.
Yoga.
After the llama adventure our tour started. We decided to take a Spanish tour to help us learn more because it has been so hard to practice in a super touristy place where there is so much English. I think that we both understood a fair amount. She told us for example that three steps carved into a rock represented the three layers of the world, the earth the sky and maybe water or hell or something(my Spanish isn´t that good). Laura wasn´t convinced that they really served religious purposes. In fact she is skeptical of everything that people claim is religious. She thinks they probably carved steps into the rock to help them go up. Then we continued through the main gait after waiting awhile for a group of girls on our tour to take pictures. Our guide showed us a rock that was perfectly aligned with north and was in the same shape as the constellation of the southern cross. I think I´d been able to find the constellation the night before and was really excited to learn about astronomy. Seeing new stars down here is really exciting and I tried to ask the guide if she knew where alpha centauri( the closest star to the earth at 4 light years) was but she hadn´t heard of it. She also showed us small pools of water which reflected the stars for the Inca.
<>Reflective pools for star observing. I don´t know why they couldn´t just look up.
The rock in the shape of the Southern Cross. The Inca had special rocks aligned to make special shadows during the summer solstice (which is not in June because we are in the Southern Hemisphere, a kind of confusing point in Spanish).
We also saw the temple of the sun where Hiram Bingham(the explorere who rediscovered Macchuy Picchu in 1911) had found some tombs. The picture is more notable for me looking like an arab with my special mosquito repellant hat.
After the tour was over we started to climb up Hyanu Picchu the tall mountain the background of all the typical Macchu Pichu shots. The steps were carved into the moutain, making a seemingly impossible climb only moderately scary. It was however pretty difficult and someone asked me if I was a smoker because I was breathing hard. I wanted to ask him if perhaps he thought it was the altitude and the 200 steps I had just climbed and not a result of a bad habit. The top of Hyuano Pichhu had more great views of snow capped volcanoes, the Inca trail and Macchu Picchu. Laura and I tried to take some action shots in our Patagonia shirts for the cataloug.
An action shot for Patagonia.
Laura climbing around(but also kind of faking it)
Laura climbing up slab.I got to climb around on some really nice granite that made me want to go climbing really badly. It was nice to be able to move around on the rocks so easily. After climbing down a ton of stairs with people passing me left and right because I was primarily using one leg we wandered around a little more but mainly laid around and absorbed the view. The Andes were just a spectacular as the ruins. Afterwards we took a train back to Cuzco, massaged our sore legs(or leg if you are me and only used one all day), and ate an entire package of crackers because we hadn´t really had a chance to eat except at the exobiantly priced Macchu Picchu lodge.
posted by Cammie at 7:58 PM
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