March 10th, 2017

Day 347: Machu Picchu – Day 2

For our second day at Machu Picchu, we had a permit to climb Macchu Picchu Mountain – at 3,060M it is the higher of the two mountains bordering the city complex (Wayna Picchu is smaller at 2,700M). On a clear day it offers a fantastic aerial view of Machu Picchu – supposedly the city is laid out in the shape of a condor, and you can see it better from the mountain.

Too bad we didn’t have a clear day. It was incredibly foggy as we caught the USD $24 tourist bus over to Machu Picchu at 7:30AM. However, we were optimistic. It was pretty cloudy yesterday as well, but it cleared up beautifully by late morning – maybe we would get lucky again. We signed in at the Machu Picchu Mountain registration desk (our allotted time was for 9AM, but the park ranger waved us in at 8AM) and started to climb. Within 15min of our ascent, it started to rain. It rained, and rained, and rained the entire trek up the mountain. Not only were the conditions terrible, but the trail was HARD – the 600+M climb was *all stairs*. Boy, were our calves hurting by the time we reached the top.

Igor McGyver’s a rain cover for our camera using a plastic baggie he bought online, 2 hair ties, and LOT of duct tape. It also works as theft deterrent, ’cause honestly, who’d want to steal that piece of shit?

Signing in for the Machu Picchu Mountain hike. Lindsay seems unreasonably optimistic despite the foreboding cloud cover

It eventually stopped raining and the clouds *looked* like they would part, but every time a gust of wind would finally move a cloud out of the way, another would float in to block our view of Machu Picchu. We arrived at the mountain peak around 10AM and waited for over an hour for the view to clear. Igor claimed a prime spot at the edge of the lookout and sat poised with his camera, ready to strike the moment the ruins were visible. Since there were so many other tourists waiting for a shot, Lindsay stood off to the side, alternately staring blankly into the whiteness and shaking rain drops off her poncho. Around 11:30AM, we finally decide to call it quits. The park closes the Machu Picchu peak at noon, and we didn’t want to wait around and have to hike down with the entire crowd of tourists. We took a bet that it wouldn’t clear up in the next 30min (it didn’t).

At the peak of Machu Picchu Mountain. The view is fucking covered in clouds. WHY DID I PAY TO COME UP HERE?

We wait around at the top of the mountain for over an hour, hoping the clouds will clear. See the middle picture where Lindsay is just staring at her feet? She literally stood like that all alone for about 40min.

Even though the clouds were moving with the wind, another cloud would immediately blow in to block our view. This is the *best* picture we got of Machu Picchu from the mountain summit

Heading back down the mountain, we kinda get a view of Machu Picchu underneath the clouds

Hiking down a bazillion stone steps

More nature photography: flowers (no moss)

We reached the complex exit around 12:30PM. Our train to Ollantaytambo wasn’t until 4PM, so we had plenty of time to kill. Since we weren’t in a hurry, we decided to save a little money on the bus fare into town and take the hiking trail down instead. It was a good 50min walk, cutting through the forest, to reach the Urubamba River, then another 20min walking along the road (we had to keep an eye out for buses as they seemed to enjoying speeding through puddles and splashing us!). Once we reached our hotel, we collected our baggage from the front desk and sat in the lobby using their free Wifi for about 2hr until it was time to head over to the train station.

We forego the USD $24pp bus tickets and take the hour-long walking trail down to Aguas Calientes

The riverside town of Aguas Calientes

The tourist train from Machu Picchu used to run all the way to Cusco, however nowadays it is under new management (owned by a Chilean company – the Peruvians must hate that!) and the line only goes to Ollantaytambo – the town in the Sacred Valley where we stopped for food supplies the first day of our trek. From there, Alpaca Expeditions had arranged for a private car to come pick us up.

The train ride itself was not as enjoyable as we had expected. The train is supposed to be a scenic ride through the Sacred Valley – the cars themselves were Vistadomes, with large windows on the sides and skylights on the roof. We had a great view – no complaints there. What kinds sucked was that the seats are all around 4-top tables, so we were facing a pair of strangers the whole ride. Most people would just roll with it and make conversation with their fellow travelers, but we were so tired, the last thing we wanted was to make chit chat for 2hrs. so we just sat in polite silence with the couple across from us.

The train “flight attendants” (what is their official title?) served us a free beverage and snack at the beginning of the journey, and then tried to entertain us. First, a scary-looking mascot came out and selected passengers to get up and dance with him (luckily for Lindsay the woman sitting across from her took a bullet for the team and got up and danced, sparing Lindsay the terror of one-on-one interaction with a mascot); the second diversion was a “fashion show” where the male and female train attendants modeled a variety of alpaca-wool sweaters, dresses and other accessories (conveniently for sale on board!).

While the views out the window of the train were very pretty, by the end of the ride we were very thankful that we only had to ride the thing once.