Machu Picchu (and Cuzco pt. 2)

Machu Picchu is only accesible via the town of Aguas Calientes, at the base of the mountain, and Aguas Calientes is accessible mostly via a long, expensive train ride. We elected to take a cheaper, longer, less traveled, and more adventurous route that basically involved a lengthy flanking maneuver by car to approach Aguas Calientes from the more remote back side. It was an all-day affair, with an international cast of 10 stuffed into a minivan; crossing dozens of engorged creeks; climbing up over passes somewhere around 13,000 ft; passing through the cloud forest villages of Santa Maria and Santa Teresa (among smaller ghost towns that the jungle was visibly reclaiming); squeezing into the trees to let big trucks past on an impossibly narrow road; waiting in a crowd to watch two police investigators try to make sense of a head-on collision between a tour bus and a now crumpled minivan eerily resembling ours (we saw an almost identical accident on the return trip); and finally descending into the gorge where a short segment of train tracks reached out from Aguas Calientes to an unlikely transportation outpost - the Cuzco region´s hydroelectric plant. How´s that for a sentence - can you tell Taylor is writing? On the 45 minute train ride upstream from the hydro plant, we got to witness the source of Cuzco´s and Puno´s electricity - the Rio Urubamba, cascading torrentially through the steep gorge with the force of late-summer rains. We checked into our hostal in Aguas Calientes, ate a quick dinner with our fellow tourists, and bedded down to prepare for an alpine start.

Up at 4:30, we left town, crossed a footbridge with the Urubamba thundering below us in darkness, and by light of the moon began the climb to the ¨Lost City of the Incas.¨ We got to the main entrance just before six, as the sun was beginning to illuminate the mist that filled the mountains around us. There we joined a few dozen other smiling hikers waiting for the gate to open, satisfied to have beaten the first bus up the hill. Inside, we had a few minutes to cross the city, grab tickets for the first-come, first-serve climb up the neighboring crag of Wayna Piccu, and meet our tour guide at 6:40. The 2-hour tour was great, though we didn´t learn much that Juan hadn´t already told us at the other ruins. Machu Picchu deservedly bears the title ¨Maravilla del Mundo¨- one of the new 7 wonders of the world. From its breathtaking location to the beauty and scale of its stone architecture, to the feeling it impressed on us of being transported back through time, it was the most memorable thing we´ve seen on the whole trip.

Here´s a shot to go on the wall back at work (the matching shirts were even cuter because our names were on the back). We had do this because our friend Mike brought back a picture with his Second Nature shirt atop Aconcagua, the highest peak in S. America. Maybe this is the start of a tradition...

Yesterday was a day of rest after all that climbing, back in Cuzco with Juan, Marta, Wendy, and Aaron. They took us to a lake where we all crammed into a paddleboat for quick afternoon excursion, then to a local open-air restaurant that specialized in the infamous Peruvian delicacy, Cuy (guinea pig). Unsettling as its appearance was, we had to admit it was not half bad.

Finally, here´s a shot of Cuzco´s central plaza from a balcony where we had lunch today - really good Thai food, of all things. Tonight we're off to Puno and Lake Titicaca.