It has taken me a lot longer to get here than anticipated. You see, I have been in a creative slump. What's so creative about pulling out pictures from a hard drive and placing captions, you ask? My newest accessory is a pair of computer progressive glasses. They are never to be found once off my face and I need some creative ideas on where to store them so I can find them and no! I cannot get more than one pair (I plunked a whole mortgage payment on the first one)...but I digress.
Any trip to Peru has Machu Picchu on the agenda and ours included the level 2 of the visit, climbing the Wayna (Huyana) Picchu. If you can spare the time, I highly recommend the climb. We did not climb Mt. Machu Picchu so cannot compare the experience and neither did we do the 4 day hike to reach MP as I am old enough to scale only the "old mountain". The climb to Huyana Pichu is not, scale the vertical rocks of Yosemite but neither is it a slow flat incline type of a climb. You need not be an athlete but being in decent physical shape helps. After reviewing and reading several online travel blogs, we decided to get advance reservations for the 7:00 am climb.
The early morning mist rising from the Urumbamba enshrouded and unrobed the park simultaneously. It was almost like being in the pages of The Celestine Prophecy. Were it not for the "dont be late for your entry" advice from the previous bloggers, I would have stayed there all morning
The plaza, the sacred rock, the terraces were beyond breathtaking. Once we signed our life away at the entrance and started walking up (more like ambling up), it seemed like this climb would be a piece of cake. We couldnt see more than 20 feet in any direction. With such low visibility, would there be any point in climbing up to the top? Well, the walk itself was intriguing. The vegetation was all tropical rainforest like, complete with ferns and orchids but the air was cold, damp and dreary like England (sorry English, that is the only England I have known in my several visits to your land). Everywhere you turn, you would find a different plant species. Almost as if they all wanted that little piece of heaven.
Enough about the vegetation, what about the climb? All I can say is that we were glad we took the "take the 7:00 am slot" advice. Some of us made it up the mountain at a decent pace while others claimed to take the time to enjoy the view (No comments on their fitness level :) ). What is normally a 2.5 hour return trip turned into 4 for us and we started coming across two way traffic on the way down. The images below give you an idea of what the steps look like on that climb. That little spot on the top left picture is my friend coming up the steps and you certainly do not want to share space on those.
If you are afraid of heights, there are certain spots where you better not look right (or left on the way down) towards the valley. I am on that list and thanks to the illusion created by the mist, never quite realized the height we were at (1000 ft. above MP at the summit). Just when you think there was nowhere to go, you see a set of steps rising in a tunnel between the rocks. When you come out through the rocks, you reach the summit. It was already packed with quick and fit climbers and there was no room left for us to be stationed in the clouds. My friend and I were on cloud nine despite no room to stand. Why? A gentleman from Michigan complemented that we two were best dressed on that mountain. A girl doesnt need anything more than that!
Circling around the summit (I think it was a circle! ), we came across a gigantic rock sloping downwards. There was a bit of a bottle neck if you took the normal trail, and a group of pushy NY residents ever so nastily suggested that we hurry up. They pretty much wanted us to push past an elderly Japanese lady who was trying slowly to make her way down. My dear husband who has no patience for such road rage, decided to just slide down the rock (Not a great idea! and yes we are still married....what can I say....it was our 25th wedding anniversary that was being celebrated at MP).
All the while I was wondering where the Priest's home was, we turned around a corner and started seeing the structure. The theory is that the priest lived here with the virgins and could see the rising dawn first so he would walk down to Machu Picchu to announce the arrival of the new day. He sure must have special skills to walk down fast because when I tried to do that, I slipped pretty hard a couple of times and am lucky I still have the skull that has protected the memory of what I write here.
You can view the entire sanctuary from the top (well we did too, just through a filter of clouds).
As we started climbing down the mist rose above us and we could see some of the terraces, Urumbamba and the train running along river near Aquas Calientes
We were too tired, cold, wet (and unfit) to go around the Moon temple trail.
The climb give me an appreciation of the ingenuity of the Incas not only in the engineering of the the buildings but the pathways they forged to get to such heights.
It truly was a once in a lifetime trip!
Love it!! Lots of nostgia from my own trip.
ReplyDeleteThank you Sicufel! Glad it was able to relive your memory. After all, we do not make it these places again and again but they leave such a wonderful impression that we can relive them from our memories and those who visit after us. Another reader posted on FB as follows:
ReplyDeleteReminded me so much of my own trip to macchu picchu a few years ago. Reading your down to earth narrative, I felt you were expressing so much of what I felt myself there. The forgotten words came to life as I read on... Aqua Caliente' , the lodge, the train station and the market next to it, the train ride with rain dancing on the clear glass roof. , etc. All came flooding back ...
Thanks! One interesting experience I had at the top ...after the usual 5-6 hrs up there, My team ( we were in Peru doing operations ) went hiking down the mountain, and i I decided to just lay quietly on the mountain slope basking in its spirituality. Then , while waiting in line to get a ticket for the bus down to town, I hear a Hindi song. I looked around expecting to see a fellow desi on top of MP, but no such peeps in line or vicinity. Yet the song got louder and louder as I approached the ticket booth. And there was the Peruvian young lady rocking to the beat of a Hritik roshan song. I asked in broken Spanish " Bollywood - indiano song?" She blurted out in fast Spanish describing how she liked the Indian music etc. all I said was " me no abla espaniol. Me indiano" and she leapt off the chair , excited like a child with a new toy, that she was face to face with a " real "Indian desi man. " you indiano? You indiano? Si? si? "
She went on to show me a long list of her Bollywood song collection stored in her Nokia phon's MP3 player. And how her friends and family loved watching Bollywood movies with Spanish subtitles. " muccho goosto"
Who'd have thunk? That high atop Macchu Picchu, I would bump into a Bollywood fan? Go figure. One if my most memorable "people experience ".