Friday, October 10, 2008
Saturday, 9.27: Winay Wayna to Machu Picchu to Cusco
To my utter dismay, when we woke up the next morning at 4, I could still hear raindrops dripping on our tent. Heartbroken that the past three days of physical and mental exhaustion were going to culminate in disappointment rather than the majestic spectacle I had envisioned, I went about the chore of getting dressed and packed up with considerable grumbling and whining, which did not sit well with my tent mates. Finally, Heather barked at me, “Look, it is what it is, OK? So let’s just get ready and go. I can’t take any more of the whining!” Of course, she was right—my whining wasn’t going to make things better, and was actually just making them worse for her and Bri since they had to listen to me, but in my highly emotional state, I wasn’t interested in reason. I traded the whining for crying, but tried my best to hide the tears that were sliding down my cheeks. (I suspect my sniffling gave me away, but neither Bri nor Heather said anything else about it.)
When we finally got packed up and exited the tent, I discovered that all the drama had been for naught—it wasn’t raining anymore; the drops I’d heard were from the tree above our tent. That improved my mood somewhat, but I still was feeling pretty emotional, so I hung back from the rest of the group, fighting back tears for most of the relatively short hike to the Sun Gate. The majority of the trail was “Inca flat” until we got to the Gate, at which point we had to climb the steepest steps we’d encountered yet—in fact, it was more like climbing a ladder than walking up steps. But as soon as we reached the top and rounded the corner, there it was: Machu Picchu. The sight of the vast city laid out below, gleaming in the sun’s first rays, took my breath away, and I let out a small gasp. All the physical torment and the emotional anguish of the past few days fell away, and I hurried excitedly to find Heather and Bri so we could congratulate ourselves on reaching the end of our journey.
Actually, though, our journey wasn’t quite over yet; we still had to hike down to Machu Picchu. On our way down, we passed some day-trippers who were hiking up to the Sun Gate to get a glimpse of the view we’d just witnessed, and we couldn’t resist tossing a few glares their way when we saw their clean clothes and shiny hair. Once we’d reached the classic postcard vantage point just above the ancient city, what was left of our group (Mark, Jim, and Bill had gone ahead of the rest of us to try to get tickets to climb Huyana Picchu) stopped to pose for pictures. I thought about the first time I saw that famous picture of the llama looking out over Machu Picchu in a National Geographic at my optometrist’s office when I was little, and part of me couldn’t believe I was standing right where that llama was. (I had Bri take a picture of me re-creating the llama scene so I could adequately capture the moment.)
Once we’d satisfied our photo-op needs, we descended to the entrance to check our bags. It was a relief to be able to walk around without a backpack, although at that point my legs were so exhausted that, for most of our tour with Marcelo, I was more concerned with trying to find a place to sit down than with listening to everything he had to say. After acquainting us with the basics, Marcelo turned us loose to wander around on our own. After a brief rest, Heather, Bri, and I set off through the winding passageways that led between the stone structures. The funniest moment of the day came when we were heading out—Heather was about to go through a doorway, when all of a sudden a llama came barreling around the corner to get a drink at a small pool inside one of the buildings. It scared her half to death, but Bri and I, who were a little further away and therefore not right in the llama’s path, could not stop laughing.
After we’d explored most of the city, we headed down to the café near the pickup point for the bus that would take us to Aguas Calientes. We celebrated the culmination of our journey with ridiculously overpriced sodas that tasted amazing after drinking nothing but water and Gatorade for four days. We rode the bus (which follows a crazy zig-zag road down the mountain) with most of the rest of our group, and all filed to the restaurant that served as the designated Peru Treks gathering place. After dropping off our bags and downing pizza, French fries, and beer (all much-needed indulgences), Heather, Bri, and I set off in search of an Internet café so we could reconnect with the outside world. As it turns out, four days without civilization isn’t all that much, so once we’d checked e-mail and Facebook and watched a few YouTube videos, we weren’t sure what to do with ourselves in the remaining hours until our 5:00 train. We wandered around Aguas Calientes in sort of a daze—Bri and Heather were feeling pretty shell-shocked; I was less so. (I told them they should have had a few emotional breakdowns on the trail, as that seemed to be helping me with the transition back into society.) Finally, we just decided to go back and sit at the restaurant with the Golden Oldies.
Pretty soon, the rest of the group joined us, and a drama unfolded when Robert, Helene, and Chris, who had sent their laundry off to be done while we waited for the train, couldn’t find their things in the bundles of clean laundry that had been delivered. As Chris (who was Chilean and spoke better Spanish than anyone else in our group) argued with the laundry guy, the rest of us just sort of sat around uselessly, positing theories among ourselves as to what could have happened. Well, except for Jim, who began yelling at the Peru Treks guy (who, rudely, had been listening to his iPod during the whole ordeal) when he insisted that the Canadians board the train without their things. Reluctantly, they did, and no sooner had we taken our seats than the mystery was solved—Sandra discovered that she’d accidentally packed their clothes into her bags.
Relieved that the Canadian Laundry Crisis was over, Bri, Heather, and I settled in for the ride back to Ollantallytambo. The other person in our cluster of four seats was a stoner hippie dude from Colorado who regaled us with tales of his solo trek down the Salcantay trail (an alternative route to Machu Picchu that’s much less crowded and which you don’t have to be part of a group to hike), recounting how his hiking boots had been stolen and he’d had to do most of the hike in some flip-flops he’d bummed from a passing Australian, and how he’d subsisted only on fruit he picked along the way and the few Clif Bars he’d brought with him, drinking water out of whatever taps he could find. As we listened to this tale, I felt alternately guilty about the relative comfort of our trek, yet also devoid of sympathy for someone who willingly struck out into the Andean wilderness with so little preparation.
Once we reached the station at Ollantaytambo, we disembarked into a veritable madhouse. Thousands of backpackers were flooding out of the train toward buses, hemmed in on every side by food vendors and other hawkers yelling from brightly lit stalls. Somehow, we managed to stay with the group and not get ourselves killed (although Bri and Suz did nearly get hit by a wayward bus in the chaotic parking lot). A woman selling giant ears of corn got onto the bus with us, and we all bought one. As we gnawed on corn kernels that were each easily the size of a tooth, a random little kid began singing a Quechua folk song at the front of the bus as we pulled out of the parking lot. The combination of events was so surreal that Rusty, who was sitting behind me, looked around and said, “Is this really happening?” Once he’d finished his song, the boy walked up and down the aisles to collect change (I gave him a sole), then the bus driver let him off on a street corner just before we cruised out of Ollantaytambo.
Things calmed down after that, and I dozed on and off for most of the ride back to Cusco. At around 10, the bus dropped us all off in a plaza near our hotel, so once we’d collected our luggage and bid a hasty good-bye to everyone, Bri, Heather, and I rushed up the street where the promise of a hot shower awaited. Not wanting to delay my own shower-taking or anyone else’s, I volunteered to use the public showers down the hall rather than the private one in our room. Although I could never quite get the water temperature to even out, it might have been the best shower I’ve ever had. In fact, it’s a real toss-up as to what was the best moment of the day—my first glimpse of Machu Picchu that morning, or the shower that night. (OK, fine. It was Machu Picchu. But only by a little bit.) When I returned to our room, I noticed that it smelled overwhelmingly like dirty feet, but I was so exhausted, and so glad to be lying in an actual bed, that nothing could keep me from falling into a deep sleep.
Continue to Day 10: Cusco
To my utter dismay, when we woke up the next morning at 4, I could still hear raindrops dripping on our tent. Heartbroken that the past three days of physical and mental exhaustion were going to culminate in disappointment rather than the majestic spectacle I had envisioned, I went about the chore of getting dressed and packed up with considerable grumbling and whining, which did not sit well with my tent mates. Finally, Heather barked at me, “Look, it is what it is, OK? So let’s just get ready and go. I can’t take any more of the whining!” Of course, she was right—my whining wasn’t going to make things better, and was actually just making them worse for her and Bri since they had to listen to me, but in my highly emotional state, I wasn’t interested in reason. I traded the whining for crying, but tried my best to hide the tears that were sliding down my cheeks. (I suspect my sniffling gave me away, but neither Bri nor Heather said anything else about it.)
When we finally got packed up and exited the tent, I discovered that all the drama had been for naught—it wasn’t raining anymore; the drops I’d heard were from the tree above our tent. That improved my mood somewhat, but I still was feeling pretty emotional, so I hung back from the rest of the group, fighting back tears for most of the relatively short hike to the Sun Gate. The majority of the trail was “Inca flat” until we got to the Gate, at which point we had to climb the steepest steps we’d encountered yet—in fact, it was more like climbing a ladder than walking up steps. But as soon as we reached the top and rounded the corner, there it was: Machu Picchu. The sight of the vast city laid out below, gleaming in the sun’s first rays, took my breath away, and I let out a small gasp. All the physical torment and the emotional anguish of the past few days fell away, and I hurried excitedly to find Heather and Bri so we could congratulate ourselves on reaching the end of our journey.
Actually, though, our journey wasn’t quite over yet; we still had to hike down to Machu Picchu. On our way down, we passed some day-trippers who were hiking up to the Sun Gate to get a glimpse of the view we’d just witnessed, and we couldn’t resist tossing a few glares their way when we saw their clean clothes and shiny hair. Once we’d reached the classic postcard vantage point just above the ancient city, what was left of our group (Mark, Jim, and Bill had gone ahead of the rest of us to try to get tickets to climb Huyana Picchu) stopped to pose for pictures. I thought about the first time I saw that famous picture of the llama looking out over Machu Picchu in a National Geographic at my optometrist’s office when I was little, and part of me couldn’t believe I was standing right where that llama was. (I had Bri take a picture of me re-creating the llama scene so I could adequately capture the moment.)
Once we’d satisfied our photo-op needs, we descended to the entrance to check our bags. It was a relief to be able to walk around without a backpack, although at that point my legs were so exhausted that, for most of our tour with Marcelo, I was more concerned with trying to find a place to sit down than with listening to everything he had to say. After acquainting us with the basics, Marcelo turned us loose to wander around on our own. After a brief rest, Heather, Bri, and I set off through the winding passageways that led between the stone structures. The funniest moment of the day came when we were heading out—Heather was about to go through a doorway, when all of a sudden a llama came barreling around the corner to get a drink at a small pool inside one of the buildings. It scared her half to death, but Bri and I, who were a little further away and therefore not right in the llama’s path, could not stop laughing.
After we’d explored most of the city, we headed down to the café near the pickup point for the bus that would take us to Aguas Calientes. We celebrated the culmination of our journey with ridiculously overpriced sodas that tasted amazing after drinking nothing but water and Gatorade for four days. We rode the bus (which follows a crazy zig-zag road down the mountain) with most of the rest of our group, and all filed to the restaurant that served as the designated Peru Treks gathering place. After dropping off our bags and downing pizza, French fries, and beer (all much-needed indulgences), Heather, Bri, and I set off in search of an Internet café so we could reconnect with the outside world. As it turns out, four days without civilization isn’t all that much, so once we’d checked e-mail and Facebook and watched a few YouTube videos, we weren’t sure what to do with ourselves in the remaining hours until our 5:00 train. We wandered around Aguas Calientes in sort of a daze—Bri and Heather were feeling pretty shell-shocked; I was less so. (I told them they should have had a few emotional breakdowns on the trail, as that seemed to be helping me with the transition back into society.) Finally, we just decided to go back and sit at the restaurant with the Golden Oldies.
Pretty soon, the rest of the group joined us, and a drama unfolded when Robert, Helene, and Chris, who had sent their laundry off to be done while we waited for the train, couldn’t find their things in the bundles of clean laundry that had been delivered. As Chris (who was Chilean and spoke better Spanish than anyone else in our group) argued with the laundry guy, the rest of us just sort of sat around uselessly, positing theories among ourselves as to what could have happened. Well, except for Jim, who began yelling at the Peru Treks guy (who, rudely, had been listening to his iPod during the whole ordeal) when he insisted that the Canadians board the train without their things. Reluctantly, they did, and no sooner had we taken our seats than the mystery was solved—Sandra discovered that she’d accidentally packed their clothes into her bags.
Relieved that the Canadian Laundry Crisis was over, Bri, Heather, and I settled in for the ride back to Ollantallytambo. The other person in our cluster of four seats was a stoner hippie dude from Colorado who regaled us with tales of his solo trek down the Salcantay trail (an alternative route to Machu Picchu that’s much less crowded and which you don’t have to be part of a group to hike), recounting how his hiking boots had been stolen and he’d had to do most of the hike in some flip-flops he’d bummed from a passing Australian, and how he’d subsisted only on fruit he picked along the way and the few Clif Bars he’d brought with him, drinking water out of whatever taps he could find. As we listened to this tale, I felt alternately guilty about the relative comfort of our trek, yet also devoid of sympathy for someone who willingly struck out into the Andean wilderness with so little preparation.
Once we reached the station at Ollantaytambo, we disembarked into a veritable madhouse. Thousands of backpackers were flooding out of the train toward buses, hemmed in on every side by food vendors and other hawkers yelling from brightly lit stalls. Somehow, we managed to stay with the group and not get ourselves killed (although Bri and Suz did nearly get hit by a wayward bus in the chaotic parking lot). A woman selling giant ears of corn got onto the bus with us, and we all bought one. As we gnawed on corn kernels that were each easily the size of a tooth, a random little kid began singing a Quechua folk song at the front of the bus as we pulled out of the parking lot. The combination of events was so surreal that Rusty, who was sitting behind me, looked around and said, “Is this really happening?” Once he’d finished his song, the boy walked up and down the aisles to collect change (I gave him a sole), then the bus driver let him off on a street corner just before we cruised out of Ollantaytambo.
Things calmed down after that, and I dozed on and off for most of the ride back to Cusco. At around 10, the bus dropped us all off in a plaza near our hotel, so once we’d collected our luggage and bid a hasty good-bye to everyone, Bri, Heather, and I rushed up the street where the promise of a hot shower awaited. Not wanting to delay my own shower-taking or anyone else’s, I volunteered to use the public showers down the hall rather than the private one in our room. Although I could never quite get the water temperature to even out, it might have been the best shower I’ve ever had. In fact, it’s a real toss-up as to what was the best moment of the day—my first glimpse of Machu Picchu that morning, or the shower that night. (OK, fine. It was Machu Picchu. But only by a little bit.) When I returned to our room, I noticed that it smelled overwhelmingly like dirty feet, but I was so exhausted, and so glad to be lying in an actual bed, that nothing could keep me from falling into a deep sleep.
Continue to Day 10: Cusco
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