South America 2016 - The Inca Trail Day 4

Distance Covered: 4.67 km / 2.9 miles
Start: 2,700 m / 8,858 ft
End: 2,435 m / 7,988 ft
Climb: -265m / -870 ft

Machu Picchu hiding behind the clouds at the Sungate

We hear the campsites around us stirring even before our wakeup call at 3:30am. There are other groups who are up getting a head start. It’s the big day - the day we make our grand entrance into Machu Picchu. Tim and I are almost fully dressed by the time the wakeup call comes knocking on our tent.

It’s a quick breakfast while the porters pack up our tents to catch an early train back to town. We leave our campsite at 4:30am and walk a short 10 mins to join some teams already waiting for the checkpoint to officially open at 5:30am. Then it’s a race to the Sungate to watch the sunrise over Machu Picchu. Along the way, we will need to conquer a small flight of 50 stairs coined the “monkey steps” (AKA “gringo killer”). Turns out it’s not as bad as we expected, just a steep flight of stairs leading to the Sungate that is best done without poles. As someone in another team rightly says as we approach it: “We’ve already climbed about 50,000 steps, what’s another 50?”. We arrive at the Sungate at 6:40am and it was time for a short break as we munched on the cheese sandwiches that the cooks had prepared for us before we left camp. Soon, the sun rose to illuminate Machu Picchu.

Climbing (or crawling rather) up the Gringo Killer

Machu Picchu slowly becoming visible

Machu Picchu illuminated by the sun

After a few snaps, we powered on at the fastest pace we had moved at all week arriving at Machu Picchu at 8:30am. For all the hikers, regardless of who you’d been trekking with for the last 4 days, there was a common sense of achievement. We were even reunited with two other members of our original team who had broken off to do the Lares Trek instead of the Inca Trail. The sense of achievement was then met with slight disappointment as Machu Picchu had already been flooded by tourists who had arrived by the train. Despite strict controls around the number of people who were allowed on the Inca Trail each day, there appears to be no control on the number of people who can visit Machu Picchu by train (there is actually a daily limit of 2,500 people per day - which is still a lot).

The disappointing discovery that we are not the first ones to arrive at Machu Picchu. Probably how Hiram Bingham felt.

But stand in the right spot and you can pretend you are! If you look closely, you'll see tourists walking around Machu Picchu. That provides a scale of how large the constructions are.

After taking a few moments for photos, it’s a quick toilet break before our guide takes us on a guided tour through Macchu Picchu. At this point, the adrenaline is wearing off as we have all been awake for 6 hours and it’s only 9:30am. Leo declared that each time he catches one of us falling asleep, we owe him a pisco sour at lunch.

Learning more about Machu Picchu from tour guide extraordinaire, Leo Ccoyo Ccoyo

Another view of Machu Picchu

Happy Llama, Sleepy Llama; tourists walking around Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu is an ancient Incan citadel situated in the Andes in Peru. It was UNESCO heritage listed in 1983 and was said to have been discovered by Hiram Bingham III in 1911. But like a number of historical sites, when Bingham arrived, there were already indigenous farmers living in the area who knew of Machu Picchu and occasionally visited it. Machu Picchu was built in the 15th century and abandoned in the second half of the 16th century. The exact use of Machu Picchu, like many of the Incan ruins throughout Peru is a mystery but it has long been assumed that the terraces were used for agricultural purposes and the buildings with sophisticated dry-stone walls with fused blocks (without mortar) were temples as they were aligned with the sun and / or stars. This suggests the need of the Incan state to have a religious, political and administrative spaces.

In comparison to other historical UNESCO heritage sites around the world, Machu Picchu is actually relatively young. The most famous section of the Great Wall of China (though little of it remains) was constructed by Qin Shi Huang in the 2nd Century BC, but several other sections of the wall can be dated as far back as the 7th Century BC, making parts of it up to 2,200 years older than Machu Picchu. In further comparison, the earliest Egyptian pyramids were constructed between 2630 BC–2611 BC, making them approximately 4,000 years older than Machu Picchu.

Showing the stable structure of the Incan architecture despite not using mortar. The land beneath the building has softened / eroded over time due to moisture, yet the building still somewhat stands, a testament to the Incan architecture techniques which still remain somewhat of a mystery.

Temple of the three windows

Leo telling us about the Sun temple. Look up to see two windows - one constructed to receive the sunrise from summer solstice, the other receives the light during the winter solstice; Us wrapping up our Machu Picchu visit with our guides Leo and Rudy

Who doesn’t want to be a llama right now?

After the tour, we have some free time to enjoy the space before heading to our next meeting point - the Hot Springs 2 restaurant for lunch. Some of the group decide to stay and explore, while a handful of us decide we’ve had enough walking, sun and exploration to last us a (short) lifetime and we follow our guides straight to the bus that takes us to the restaurant. And of course, when in Peru, you have to eat like a local so it was time for some grilled guinea pig.

Guinea Pig looking very different to how we are used to seeing them

After lunch, it was a train and bus back to Cusco, where we would spend the evening and following day, resting before the next stop of our South American Adventure - almost equally mysterious and exciting, The Amazon Jungle. What secrets does it have hidden behind its thick foliage?

Inca Trail Complete

Length of the trail: Approx. 39 km / 24.23 miles

Min. Altitude: 2,450 m / 8,038 ft (Machu Picchu)

Max. Altitude: 4,205 m/13,796 ft (Dead Woman’s Pass)

Rare Pokemon Caught: None

Already feeling a little nostalgic as we go past our starting point at km 82 on the train. Team Sexy Llama - Any one up for Lares Trek 2018?

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