Day 11: In Machu Picchu Again and on to Ollantaytambo

Last night, Steve got today’s tickets for going to Machu Picchu and the hike up Waynnapicchu mountain. Gwenn got mine since I was working on the blog. After she’d gone to bed and I’d finished writing, I looked at it and discovered that the date showed as 8/29. Since it was supposed to show 8/24, I knew something odd had happened, but since everyone else was asleep, I couldn’t ask about it until morning. Turns out Gwenn’s and mine, Linda’s and Kip’s, and Franja’s all showed 8/29. Pam and Wayne had the right info, so they headed for the bus station to get started.

Steve then went into overdrive to contact the agent who he’d gotten the tickets through but it was too early for her to be in the office. Our next choice was to head to the ticket office to see if we could get the problem fixed. Initially the agent at the desk was, um, let’s say “uncooperative.” We decided to go ahead and purchase additional tickets so we wouldn’t miss the day on the mountain. Franja was first and lo and behold, when the agent put in her passport number, she found that she was already in the system. In fact, she found all of us there!

The problem was apparently that the agent had put us in as Peruvian nationals (and had other info wrong, like listing all of us females as males). So the local agent became quite accommodating and in relatively short order, had printed a second ticket for each of us, and called up to the gate to explain what was going on.

Then we were on our way to the bus station. The line was much shorter this time since we had missed the morning rush, so we were again headed up the mountain. Yay! I wasn’t sure if this day would be possible. I had already decided not to do the trek up the Waynnapicchu but wanted to take more pictures in the main ruins area and hoped the sun would come out.

The sun peeked through the clouds occasionally, the first time allowing me to get a sunlit picture of the river that runs at the bottom of the valley. In the next minute, the mists obscured the light again. That was so beautiful, and it moves so fast, that I couldn’t resist another shot, even though I’d gotten plenty yesterday.

Today my goal was to just stroll around by myself to see what I could see–looking for good or interesting shots. You’re only seeing a selection, but I know it’s still a lot!

There’s another shot of roof construction, this time on all four walls (some are only two or three walls). Next, a workman who was removing weeds from between the stones allowed me to take his picture. You’ll see the uniforms all these folks wear. They clean, garden, and keep people off of places where they shouldn’t be. Mostly unobtrusive, they perform an important service but mostly want to stay in the background.

The next user-perspective shot of some flying stairs is for Gwenn, who’s now thinking of using something like this at her house. It does seem like this kind of stair would save a lot of space.

I got another shot of the important temple built on a major existing rock–the one with the burial places for royalty. And I got a clearer shot of that graffiti I mentioned yesterday, where names had been carved into a rock in this area.

Have I mentioned that this city was unfinished? There was apparently major work still going on here at the time the population dispersed because of political infighting in the capital. You can see this in the next shot where the fine wall construction was used on the right, but on the left there were just regular stones fitted sort of any which way.

About this time, the sun started to come out in earnest, so I got some sunny pictures to contrast with many scenes from yesterday with no or very little sun. It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day. I stripped to only one layer of clothing (in other words, took off my fleece jacket) and just basked, sitting in the sun wherever I could.

In one house we hadn’t seen yesterday, there was what looked like an existing rock that had been smoothed on the top for some purpose, with a “slide” on the right-hand side. I don’t know if anyone knows what this was used for, but it looked to me like perhaps a cooking place. (I have no knowledge to base that on, it’s just a guess.)

I got a great mountain shot through a window, with the river way down in the valley, and I found a couple of alleys that had drainage holes. I’m guessing they were there when the city was built and are not an addition (but I could be wrong about that, too! 🙂 )

About this time I had to go out the gate to use the banos (bathroom). As I was coming back, I got a relatively clear shot of the front gate (on the right up the stairs), the sign showing how the area is laid out, and the souvenir stand where I bought some postcards–so this picture is for you, Tre, so you’ll know where your Machu Picchu postcard came from.

Back inside, I got a sunny picture of that lovely red plant you might remember from yesterday, a good picture of just one flying stair, which, considering the height, I think might have served another purpose, and a window-framed shot of some of the buildings the archaeologists had put roofs on to show how it might have been done. This shot was looking back toward the entrance.

There was another way roofs, or maybe floors, were constructed–by putting a ledge around the building and spanning planks across the rooms. Then I got a sunny shot of the condor wing (which I had to wait a long time for so I could see it without many tourists in the way. It’s a popular place! There is one person in the picture–do you see him? It’s one of the service men.

In my wanderings, I found a cave we hadn’t seen on the tour, as well as a room that had a different kind of entrance; one where when you come in, you run into a wall unless you turn right. It looked to me as if there was a hearth at the back of the room, so I wonder if this is a place where cooking was done.

I sat in an open courtyard at the edge of the houses for some time and caught the sun shining on a lower area of terraces. Right now, this area isn’t open to tourism. Good thing for me–it’s a long way down, which means having to come back up!

There’s another great example of how the residents built upon existing rock. This appeared to be one of the last houses before the terraces began.

I got a couple of shots of the open courtyard at the edge of the settlement, the second one of which shows Waynnapicchu in the background. I thought of the other members of the tour who were climbing up there. I was actually quite glad to not be with them on this particular hike.

I found a room with what looked like some kind of alter sitting in about the middle of one side, then got a good shot of a stone lintel over a door. In that room were another couple of structures. On the left is a built-up stone area, and on the right is a stone that divides a small area of the room. Not sure what these were for.

Then in walking outside this same area, I looked up and saw those stone posts sticking out of the roof. These were different from the other’s I’d seen in that they had holes in them.

The next shot of the green has an interesting backstory. See what looks like a buried stone in the middle of the courtyard? Apparently the first way visitors got to the site in modern times was by helicopter, which were allowed for about 10 years. At one point, a crew buried an obelisk they found there which was interfering with their being able to land two helicopters at once. Interesting, huh? And that’s not the only damage they did. The vibrations and noise from the helicopters was eventually found to be damaging the site, so they were then banned from landing.

Next is a lizard. You might have to look really hard to see him, but he’s smack in the middle of the picture, head pointing to the right, sitting on a jutting rock. I got a few shots of him, with the last being of him scampering away. These “lagartija de ochoa” really blend in!

The sun was fully out when I took the next picture of the courtyard and Waynapicchu in the background. It really does dominate the site.

In the quarry area, I looked just the right way and ran smack into a “viscacha.” Kind of looks like a rabbit, doesn’t it? They’re very shy. He sat there as long as I didn’t move, thinking he would be invisible, I guess. As soon as I started walking, he was gone!

Found some pretty leaves, then got another sunny picture of an area with lots of buildings. And then iss the clearest picture I have of the top of Waynnapicchu. You can see what look like terraces lining the top. This is the top of the trail up the mountain. Zoomed in, I can see people lining some of those walks. Everyone else had amazing anecdotes about the climb, but since I didn’t go, I can’t give a reliable report, so I won’t try. All in all, I understood it was a major climb. However, my next shot of the ladies in costume is related to the mountain climb. Apparently they had just come down from doing this climb. Besides their native dress, including skirts, they had on heeled shoes! Not what we’d think of as safe climbing gear, especially considering the trail conditions reported by our own crew. Pretty amazing.

I was waiting by the exit (in the sun, naturally) and was able to join up with the other climbers, so we all boarded the bus down at the same time. Do we know how to stick together or what? After a quick lunch for some and snacks for others, we boarded the train out of town for our next stop, Ollantaytambo. Since we were in the first car, I got a shot of the tail end of the train as we went around a corner.

At our hotel, El Albergue, I got a quick shot of one of the beautiful flowers they have planted throughout their courtyards. Nice splash of red. Here, too, I saw my second cat in Peru and the first one I could get a picture of. There are many more dogs around. For a while, I was wondering if there were any cats in this country!

After checking in (great rooms!), we took a short stroll into the main part of town. Pam, Linda, and I only went as far as the main courtyard, then decided to head back to get cleaned up for dinner. We ate at our hotel and the food was fabulous! I had green fettuccini with four-cheese sauce and it was superb. Everyone loved their choices. Three of us shared a dessert, too, a brownie with ice cream, natch!

I have to tell you a quick experience at the end of our day. The hotel has a sauna, so Kip, Gwenn, and I decided to try it out. I went fully clothed because I just wanted to get warm. The weather here is a bit cooler than in Aguas Caliente, but even there was pretty cool for me. The beds are always really warm with wonderful blankets, but because I stay up for a while working on this blog, I often get pretty cool before I head to bed.

Anyway, we headed to the sauna. There was a roaring fire, a eucalyptus branch, and some pitchers of water. We got instructions from a very helpful hotel lady. The three of us just fit in this room and it was warming me up nicely. Kip said he wasn’t going to put any water on the stones until I left because “it would get pretty intense.” I said that was fine. Well, right about then, this lady came back with more eucalyptus branches to put on the fire. She offered to put some water on them, so we said “OK.” Well, about 10 seconds after she did, we all went flying out of the room! It was so hot we all thought we were being steamed alive! Made for a good story. We stayed outside for a while with the door open, then went back in. I probably made about five minutes, then headed back–fully warmed as I wrote most of this text.

Internet access seems pretty poor in this room, so I’m heading to the lobby to see if I can get a connection there and get this uploaded. If not, I might have to skip a night.

Tomorrow is more ruins locally, then a trip back to Cusco in a van, stopping at a couple of more ruins along the way.

Later, muchachos!