Macchu Picchu

After a week in and around La Paz, our time in Bolivia was almost up. We spent our last few days at Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Bolivia and Peru. After a day in the small holiday town of Copacabana watching the bizarre car blessing ceremony outside the church (the owners decorate the cars with garlands of flowers, then pour various forms of alcohol liberally over it and down their throats), we hiked 17 peaceful km along the lake shore to the point where the mainland is closest toIsla del Sol, from where we caught a row boat (rowed by a 78 year old man!) to the island. According to Inca legend, this is the place where the sun was born, and despite a rainy start to the day, it soon cleared up and the sun returned to the place of its birth with full force. There are no vehicles, or even roads on the island, which makes it a quiet, relaxing place. The lake itself is beautiful. The still, clear deep blue waters are dotted with various steep hilly islands (including the birthplace of the moon), making for some great day hikes, with spectacular views. A number of ancient Inca ruins on the island make it even more interesting, and a range of snow capped Andean mountains in the distance complete the picture nicely.

After a couple of days on the island we headed by bus to Puno, on the Peruvian shore of the lake, and then on to Cusco, the capital of the ancient Incan empire. Cusco is bigger, cleaner and more modern than we´d expected, and makes a nice change from many of the cities we´ve visited so far. Loads of small alleyways, cobbled streets and red-tiled roofs make it quite picturesque. The main reason for visiting Cusco was the same as many tourists, as a base for visiting the famed Macchu Picchu, the lost Incan city. Discovered in 1911 on the hillside of an Andean valley, deep in the cloud forest, the jungle around the site has since been cleared, and turned into Peru´s number one tourist attraction, and don´t they know it. Tourists get taken to the cleaners for the visit, paying 5 times as much as locals to catch a train to the site (which is the only way to get there if you´re not doing the Inca Trail), and then a steep entrance fee too. We tried to do it as cheaply as possible by catching the ¨Backpackers¨ train, by camping, and by walking up the steep hill to the site itself, rather than catch the expensive bus, but we were still feeling a bit grumpy about the rather large cash outlay.

The Backpackers train gets into Aguas Calientes, the town at the bottom of the valley, at about 10 PM, so we pitched our tent in the campsite in the dark, and woke , ready to climb the hill the next morning at 4:30am in the dark. As it became light we were treated to some spectacular scenery, with huge mountains rising steeply with sheer cliffs into the clouds above. We set off up the mountainside, and were soon in the clouds ourselves. It took us a hot & sweaty hour to climb the 1675 steps (Meris counted!) and arrive at the entry gate just as they opened at 6am. We´d got up super early and climbed the mountain specifically to get there early before the busses of tourists from Aguas Calientes arrived, so you can imagine how devastated we were when the official told us that tickets weren´t sold at the gate, but rather back down the mountain in Aguas Calientes!!!

Most people at the gate at that time were finishing the 4 day Inca trail through the mountains, and already had tickets. So we stood dumbfounded as everybody else streamed past us into the site! There were however a few other hot & sweaty tourists looking equally dumbfounded, and even outraged, and we made enough noise that eventually the official dug out some tickets and sold them to us - serious relief!!! We went into the site, but there wasn´t really much to see at first, as we were still inside the cloud. However, as we sat and ate some breakfast, our grumpiness about being ripped off burned away with the clouds which slowly dissolved to reveal the spectacular situation of the city, perched high up in the saddle between Macchu Picchu and Huanya Picchu mountains. The ruins themselves are magnificent, but I don´t think they would attract nearly as much attention if they were on a flat plain somewhere. The topography in the area is unbelievable, with virtually sheer granite cliffs rising 100´s of metres from the Rio Urubamba far below. Where the slopes aren´t sheer they are covered in beautiful green cloud forest, and in the early morning these were shrouded in wisps of mist - absolutely stunning.

Tomorrow we´re going to try our luck at getting a flight to Puerto Maldonados in the Amazon jungle, where we will spend a few days if we get there!