December 20
OK – this is it! The end of the line for us. Our porters woke us up early – a little after 3am – and we rushed to get our stuff put together. The porters are required to be on a train by 4:45am, so they have to break camp and walk an hour or so to get to the train. Despite this, by the time we were out of our tent, they had sandwiches, snacks, clean water prepared, and of course some tea so we can wake up properly. We had already said our goodbyes the night before, so we mostly tried to stay out of their way. Once we were ready to go, Ruban, Michael and I walked about 10 minutes to the next check point. We got there early enough that we got a seat on the bench. The check point didn’t open until 5:30am, so we sat and waited with the other hikers. Our early arrival paid off once it started pouring and the hikers at the end of the line tried to push in to stand under our cover. It was nice to have that seat for two hours.
Once the check point was opened we started on the last bit of our journey. Ruban told us to go ahead and he’d meet us at the sun gate.
The rain was a little tricky – we tried to keep our backpacks dry. I pulled out the poncho I had brought for the first time. But it was hot – so after awhile, we just gained comfort with the fact that we were going to be wet and started losing layers.
There was a lot of anticipation as we did that final hike. A handful of hikers pulled off to the side at some ruins for a few minutes, but one of the groups just kept hiking, so we kept moving as well. About 15 minutes after those ruins, we started seeing clean, put together people walking towards us. Some of the people who had taken the train to Machu Picchu were hiking this portion of the Inca trail. One woman stopped me and asked how much further it was to the Sun Gate…. umm…. So we blew through the Sun Gate. As the official entrance to Machu Picchu, it’s super important and we were supposed to meet Ruban there, but… oh well. It was cloudy and we couldn’t see anything there anyways.
The clouds did break long enough to give us this shot of MP as we were hiking that morning:
So not that impressive, yet. But it was our first glimpse and we were pumped! The difficulty of the past three days of hiking had knocked our excitement and anticipation up to an eleven.
Ruban caught up to us pretty quickly and we entered Machu Picchu.
It was remarkable.
Ruban spent about two hours with us at Machu Picchu before he had to head back to Cusco. He talked through the different sections of the ruins, where the school was located, what everyday life would have looked like. He also gave us a lot of information about the different temples.
Temple for Pacha Mama: notice how the entrance is shaped similar to a mountain. Also, entering the space was supposed to be like entering Pacha Mama’s womb. The Sun Temple was directly above.
Temple of the Condor: the huge rugged stones are the wings and the stone on the ground is the beak/head. The condor is believed to be the animal that can travel between the earth and the afterlife/the heavens, so the Incas would mummify their dead and put them on the back of the condor here. That way, the condor could transfer the dead to the gods.
Beyond the temples, there was a lot of random cool stuff. Like this:
But in general, we were mostly just pumped to be there and to see how extensive the city was.
There were a lot of people and it did feel a bit touristy after so many days without showers and real bathrooms. There were a lot of selfie sticks and posing, but we just felt really proud of ourselves. I did at least.
I felt less proud of this picture:
Here’s how the interaction went:
Ruban: if you sit right there, it is the best picture
Jane (seeing that it’s muddy): sit? You want us to sit?
Ruban: yes – sit right there. Best picture.
Jane: sit? You want us to sit? (Possibly a language barrier… although we haven’t really had any issues in 3 days)
Ruban: sit.
Jane: sit?
Ruban: SIT
Jane sits.
Michael (who has been standing there for the entire conversation without saying anything): Jane! Why would you sit in that that mud?!? What is wrong with you?!?
Jane: Ruban told me to sit. 😒
So I had mud soaked through my pants for the rest of the day. The picture did turn out pretty great!
After Ruban headed back to Cusco, we still had some time to explore. We hiked to the Inca Bridge.
This was supposed to be a 90 minute trek. It took about 25. Max. Definitely a little anticlimactic. It was a pretty steep drop on the hike.
After this, Michael was still looking for some more hikes, so he went off to try to hike Mount Machu Picchu. They wouldn’t let him do the hike because it was too late in the day and they didn’t realize he was in beast mode, ready to run up any mountain in record time. So he instead hiked back to the Sun Gate to see what we had missed that morning.
I, however, went to the bar. I got a beer and ate the sandwich and the apple that Alberto had packed for me that morning and relaxed! My legs were completely useless at this point (and for several days after). Once Michael got back from his extra hikes, we grabbed a bus and headed to Aguas Calientes, the town where we needed to pick up our extra bags and grab the train back to Cusco. The train ride was really beautiful and we had the chance to sit opposite some guys that had been on the trail with us from the Netherlands. Really interesting conversation comparing travel stories.
That night we had Indian from the place across the street from our hostel and we slept hard. The next day we flew out of Cusco around 7pm, so we packed up our things, checked out of our room and spent the day in town. We sent our laundry off, both got super cheap massages, had lunch and some more beers and got to spend more time with Patsy and Alexa before heading to the airport.
Our overnight flight took us to Santiago, Chile. We’re here for the next week and we’re planning on relaxing, getting a Brazil visa and celebrating Christmas before heading to wine country.
A big thank you to the people of Peru who welcomed us for these past 10 or so days. We’ve enjoyed your beautiful country and we’re super grateful that you’ve preserved it and shared it with us. Also a big shout out to Ruban… truly the most interesting man in the world.
