Following the tracks of Pachacútec to Machu Picchu

Just getting to Machu Picchu is a nearly 3 day affair. Fredy, our driver from Cabanaconde, in his snazzy Suzuki model from the 70s takes us the “short” route, straight up the mountain passes instead of the paved detour. Thus we have a most amazing scenery, sputtering up the steep passes hitting nearly 5000m altitude (let me tell you, it is COLD), having to break several times to let llama herds lazily cross the road. At some point the road just stops and turns into pot holed gravel; Fredy tells us this will take only about 20min. These 20min turn into 2 hours until we finally hit a highway, one that is cram packed with super speed American style mega-trucks and that must be so new, it does not even show up on Google Maps. Fredy wriggles his way between the trucks, and we speed along them until we hit the hugest hole ever. At 80km/h in that little old minivan, and with trucks speeding past us careless about the holes with their huge tyres, we almost fly off what feels more like a cliff than a pothole. I can tell you, that was a moment of solitude, because we most certainly did NOT want to be stranded with a broken axle on an unnamed highway at over 4700m altitude in the night with crazy fast Stephen Kingesque trucks racing by. Luckily it was all good, Fredy’s van is clearly tougher than it looks and we find the connection to the brand new, still not lit up Cusco highway and with major relief and gratitude we head off to our hostel, just outside Sicuane. This part of the drive was supposed to take us a little over 6 hours, instead we’ve been on the road for over 10.

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The owner of Hostal Inca is most charming and so, after a surprisingly nice breakfast the next morning we head off onto our last 3 (but with Fredy’s batmobile possibly 6?) hour leg to Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley, from where our train to Aguas Calientes (or Machu Picchu town) will leave at 1pm. Fredy, invigorated by his sunflower seed tartine at the lovely “Lily of the Valley” café in charming Pisac puts on his turbo and so we arrive with plenty of time to spare to board the Perurail Explorer. Perurail and Incarail hold the duopoly of the route (the only alternatives being to either arrive on foot on the Inca trek or to take on a rather perilous walk on the train tracks) with the prices to go with it, but in all honesty, the train ride is just absolutely stunning. With the huge baywindows to look out onto the crashing Urubamba River nestled in a high jungle tropical forest, ruins scattered along the hills on the way…. our eyes are full.

Aguas Calientes is, indeed, as pretty much everyone would agree, a town without particular appeal. The only thing really going for it is everyone’s buzzing excitement about Machu Picchu. I am particularly pleased with my choice of hotel (Qayqa) which is right on the river, looking out on the tropical forest, amazingly comfortable beds and hot showers with great water pressure (something that you most definitely cannot say about most places in Peru, at least the ones we have been to). Added bonus: they offer breakfast as of 4h30am so that you can get to the first bus up to Machu Picchu which leaves at 5h30. We all get down on time, and I even head out to the bus at 5, just to be on the safe side. Turns out, I’m late. The line is already curling up a good 100m. The bus administrators display major organisational skills though because we actually still manage to get into a bus by 5.37am and so are finally on our way to what is definitely one of the most anticipated destinations of our trip!

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It is hard to describe the feeling when you enter Machu Picchu. It is 6am, we’ve been up since 4am to get here on time and we are so happy we did. The entrance numbers have been recently significantly restricted and given most other people who are there at this time are with their tour groups we manage to get a head start into the site and so have the place practically to ourselves. Having seen so many pictures and reports about this mystical place it feels almost unreal to be actually standing on these rocks. The pictures we take seem almost photoshopped, the backdrop is so unreal in its perfection. Needless to say that for Thierry this is pure bliss. The quality of the masonry, the sheer size of the stones, the intelligence behind the layout….. We head straight over to Wayna Picchu, the mountain that allegedly gives the best outlook over the site. It is a steep 400m climb, and we manage it in a little over half an hour so that we are amongst the first up there. Inspired by the jaw dropping view, or maybe the altitude, the boys both announce an urgent need to relieve themselves in a significant way, which definitely puts Lonely Planet’s guide to the most beautiful toilets in the world to shame, as well as their mother. We don’t want to tear ourselves away from this beautiful view, it is just too awe-inspiring. But the top starts to get a bit crowded, as does the site down below and so we join the throngs of tourists exploring the wondrous passages of this mysterious place, the kids chasing around with the llamas, feeling awestruck and incredibly grateful that we got to enjoy it in its fullest splendour.

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