I’m not, nor ever have I been a morning person, but I stand slumped outside the moderately decrepit hostel tossing pebbles at the window of the two in our party that are slowest to rise. If I’m going to be up before four in the morning, prepping a long, slow, uphill march in the dark to the poster child of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, everyone else better damned well be down here as well. I’m not the only one peeved about the situation, though I might be the most vocally persnickety about it.
In my backpack: Two bottles of water, a Snickers bar, two bags of chips, an iPod, two cameras, a rain slick and a copy of Tom Robbins’ Jitterbug Perfume. I break out the iPod and sit down, my best show of “waiting patiently.” Too early for chatter anyway. Eventually the others stumble down.
Waiting for the gates to open
It’s about a half mile out of town to the base of the climb, and we pass the buses, lined up expectantly, along the way. These are the enemy. Machu Picchu opens promptly at 6 in the morning, and the first busloads of aged and/or lazy tourists are dumped off at about the same time, with additional full loads of passengers being deposited at five-minute intervals for the remainder of the park’s open hours. Beating these buses to the punch is well advised for multiple reasons:
- Avoiding the tremendous lines that build up, especially in the first few open hours.
- Getting to enjoy the purportedly majestic ruins without having them be filled to the capacity of an amusement park on a summer Saturday.
- And, most importantly for those with any desire to see it: Wayna Picchu. The tall, green sister mountain looming over Machu Picchu in most pictures is actually covered with ruins of its own and a fantastic vantage point to take in the primary ruins from above. The one catch: Only 400 visitors are allowed to explore it daily, and even those are limited to 200 at a time (in groups departing at 7 and 10 am). As the main gates open daily, Wayna Picchu enthusiasts shoot forward across the whole of the ruins, momentarily ignoring the grandeur to secure their golden ticket at the entryway to the taller mountain on the opposite side of the park.
As undertaking this early-morning trek rather than hopping on one of the first buses really just beats about 100 people to the punch, I suppose it could also be said that those of us making said journey are really just slightly masochistic. But it’s a better story, if nothing else.
Misty morning mountains
From the start, the small, carved boulders that form the steps of this climb are large and unevenly spaced. For an hour and a half in the dark, only a single headlamp and the bright, darting circles of white from the flashlights of others light my way. The morning chill disappears quickly and is replaced by a thick layer of steadily flowing sweat. After three days of exertion, we’re warmed up, but we aren’t prepared. Some rocks are as high as three normal steps from the rock below, and the high altitude does nothing to assist in the climb. The music helps tremendously, and I lose myself to a steady rhythm that guide my steps as surely as the beat of any marching band. Of the seven in our group, I cannot tell who is ahead or below me, as I pass several people (and in turn get passed) by the minute.
And then the trees simply open up, and I am there. Backpackers already line the steps, seated in clusters, though there can’t be more than fifty up here yet. Half of my group sits in a circle and I join them, softly wheezing. They ask about my climb and I just smile, give a thumbs-up. Can’t talk yet. The sky is beginning to light up as we wait, and wisps of clouds gently envelope the mountains around us. It’s beautiful, but from our spot at the gate no evidence of Machu Picchu’s gloriousness is visible. After all the Incan relics we’ve been exposed to over the past few days (not even including the treasure trove of history that is Cusco), this place better live up to the hype…
Machu Picchu Lives up to the Hype
Ok, fine. It’s spectacular. It’s not overrated. It’s pretty fucking awesome.
Immediately on the other side of the gates, the early risers all walk briskly into the park, aiming not for the Waynu Picchu ticket area (tickets are required to be one of the 400 daily climbers, but do not actually cost any more money — It should be noted that the park entry fee is around 40 US dollars, though that was included as part of the Inca Jungle Trek package) but to claim some spot of the magnificent complex entirely for themselves. Within an hour, people from around the world will dot the area like confused, multi-colored ants, but for now it is quiet. Pristine. Mine.
Posing in one of the many archways throughout the city
I bear left, and make a gentle ascent to a spot opposite the ruined city from Wayna Picchu’s looming presence, and take it in as though I were the solitary visitor in the park. From time to time, I hear footsteps or see the motion of a brightly-colored hoodie darting somewhere far in the distance, but for the most part, Machu Picchu is mine.
Freshly meditated, I break out the copy of Jitterbug Perfume and balance it precariously on top of a carved Incan stone. My friend Liz gave it to me before I left for Peru, despite my warning that she might not get it back for a long time, and certainly not in the near mint condition it was given to me in. ”That’s ok,” she said, “just take it to some interesting places…” The plan is to have the picture made into a postcard, but it would turn out that no photo store in Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador knew how to accomplish this. But I’d at least show her the picture eventually…
Inner peace achieved, it’s time to secure my spot on the other mountain. Most of our group is already in line, closely to the front no less. Sweet. We’re among the first fifty to grab tickets for the 10 am spot, giving us a few hours to let our tourguide show us every nook and cranny of Machu Picchu that his broken English is able to impart upon us.
A pre-dawn glimpse of the ruins
This rock is carved to basically mirror the mountain directly behind it. The Incans did a much better job carving than I did framing the picture, as much of the mountain is blocked...
Lush, green mountains surround the hidden city
Disappearing into the clouds
Waiting for the Sun
It’s barely six thirty and nearly everyone awaits the coming of the sun with fervent anticipation, like concert-goers awaiting the grand entrance of whatever big name act they’re there to see. The Incans worshiped the sun and, as such, designed their architecture around it. Sunrise shadows play games with rocks, windows, obelisks and other carvings in the stone, drawing pictures on the large canvas of rock using only the absence of light as media.
Sunrise on Machu Picchu
Our guide isn’t the clearest English speaker, often piquing our interest by alerting us to the presence of something noteworthy, only to leave us baffled as to what he’s actually saying. From talking to others, I can tell where the key spots are to await the sunrise. The Temple of the Sun sits up on a hill, though real estate is limited and long since claimed. The Three Windows is another spot — there’s probably an official term better than Three Windows, but that’s what everyone seems to keep calling it. Literally, three windows are carved into one of the sun-facing walls, steadily plotting out three bright squares on the floor behind them. At another spot, two jagged rocks several feet apart form a singular shadow, with only a small triangle of light planted on the ground between them. And so on.
At this point, it doesn’t matter much. While some sought early morning solitude upon entry and others ran straight for Wayna Picchu, those “in the know” about the Incan sun light show claimed the key viewing spots, and stragglers like myself were left with the crumbs. On the plus side, the sun isn’t exactly fast-moving, so it’s unlikely I really missed much…
Separate from the group, I wander to a quiet spot away from everyone else to explore in solitude, only to come upon a group of six Peruvians in a circle around a small basket filled with strange trinkets and totems. One man wears a fairly westernized suit, though the man everyone else faces is dressed in indigenous garb like some sort of Shaman. The man in the suit spots me staring and says, in English, “Hello.”
“Hi,” I say, nodding in the direction of the basket. “Are you guys setting something up?”
“No,” the man answers, “this is just my wedding.” His sarcasm comes out in perfect English as well.
“Ohh. Oh. Congratulations. Bye.”
Awkward.
This was one of the key spots people fought to witness the sunrise at. Apparently the window is significant, but when I finally got a chance to view it, I was fairly underwhelmed.
Temple of the Sun on the left, Wayna Picchu on the right
Our guide is saying something about this rock. Yeah, you're getting about as much information about it as I did.
More Incan sun play
Incan irrigation
The Three Windows
On the left is a rock shaped like half of the Chakana, or Inca Cross. It's the most prevalent symbol in Incan mythology and during sunrise, the shadow forms the second half of the cross.
The terraces in the background were used for farming when the city was at its heyday
More glorious post-sunrise action
Llamas still roam throughout the complex, for a little added livestock flair
Note the back of Machu Picchu in the bottom left. It's a fairly sheer cliff face, dropping hundreds of feet down (not pictured) yet somehow rooms and walls are still precariously built into the sides
Wayna Picchu
By 10 am, we’ve wandered the rocky hallways of the main city for close to four hours, so it’s about time for something new and exciting already.
The climb feels more arduous than the early morning’s ascent, likely because most of us burned through our energy reserves then, combined with the addition of the sun’s heat bearing down as well. A few people actually give up midway through the climb, though witnessing this for some reason always recharges me. I am better than them.
I’m a fairly simple person at times.
Another difference here is the narrowness of the steps which, combined with the altitude and uneven steps, gives the hike an enjoyable added element of fear. At the top, my trepidations are once again dashed; the view is breathtaking, both the local scenery and Machu Picchu, now far down below. At the very top, a single rock sticks out precariously, and we take turns slowly working our way up for photo ops. Based on a single day’s evidence, this also seems to be an incredibly popular place to smoke weed.
It’s probably my favorite spot in the park, and well worth the effort. Machu Picchu was one of the first things I set out to see when madly fleeing the country on what was to be, at first, a three-week trip. Things changed drastically since that point, but I’m happy to know that the impetus for it all more than lived up to expectations.
Casually hanging over the edge of Waynu Picchu while the bulk of Machu Picchu sits far down below. The snaking road to the left is the bus route up, and if you look carefully there is a vertical path cutting through it marking the steep trail we used this morning to arrive at the site.
More terraces visible from Waynu Picchu. These are much further down than the main site and not accessible to tourists. But their (semi-recent) discovery points to how large the entire city was at one point, and how little we still know about it.
The long, narrow climb up to Wayna Picchu
Sweet. More steps.
