The Manchu Picchu Adventure and then some...

Ok Everyone… so nice and early, 6:30am, the remaining seven of us boarded a small taxi that drove the long way around to the Train station 1/4 of a mile from our hotel. We all jumped out and boarded the train to Aguas Calientes, the small town at the bottom of the mountain from Manchu Picchu. Since we didn’t do the Inca Trial or the Lourdes Trek, we got to spend the whole day in Aguas Calientes, which is know for it’s hot springs and cutesy setting. We also got the pleasure of a 4-hour train ride with our knees pushed into random corners or up again our unknown seatmates. The train seats all faced one another. Rows and rows of two seats forward facing two seats backwards. Robby and I were just thankful we got the “facing forward” seat as looking backwards on a train makes us sick. Our seatmates turned out to be a lovely couple from Argentina. But for some reason they decided to talk to me when Robby was off at the coffee cart, so I got to have a dumbfounded expression on my face as I tried to understand their Spanish and they got to look utterly confused as they tried to interpret my Spanish. Luckily Robby came back and we all semi-understood each other. I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed with Robby’s Spanish. She says it sucks, but I think it came in handy quite nicely. Now, if only I could learn it.

After freezing to death on the train while it did a ridiculous number of switchbacks to slowly crawl up the hills of Cusco and out into the Inca Valley, we made it to Aguas Calientes. We were told to look for a guy holding a sign to our hotel. What we found was a horde of people all holding signs to various hotels, hostels, and asking for certain people. What we did not find was someone holding a sign for our hotel. Instead, someone told us the young man holding a sign for another hotel was our guy. Turned out he was when we checked his list of people he was picking up. Apparently he worked for four different hotels that kind of worked together. He dropped us off at the end of town, in the last hotel before the hills.

The hotel turned out to be rather pleasant, except for the fact that our room opened out onto the train tracks. We were fairly certain it wouldn’t be a problem as we had to get up early to catch a bus to Manchu Picchu, but you never know. Turned out the train ran well into the night and was quite annoying with it’s horn. Gary and Joyce ended up switching rooms to the best room in the hotel. They had a balcony with a view of the rocky river running through the town and leading to the bottom of the mountain that held Manchu Picchu. If we used Gary’s binoculars we could glimpse part of the ruins.

After we ditched our bags, we went to get lunch with Gary, Joyce, and Jamie and then went to explore with Gary and Joyce. Aguas Calientes is a small town consisting of two main streets that run up hill and are crowded with souvenir shops and restaurants. There is a town square near the train tracks at the bottom of the hill and a hot springs at the top of the hill. A beautiful rocky river flows down one side of the town with numerous wooden bridges built across it. I decided that we should walk along the river to the base of the hot springs to see how much they cost and see if it was worth coming back later to take a swim. What we didn’t realize was that when you hike up a 45-degree hill for 10 minutes, you don’t much feel like getting in hot water afterwards. More like a cold shower. But since the town was known for the hot springs and I really wanted a picture of the bridge inside the springs, we decided to come back later for a swim. I don’t think Gary was too happy about it, as he was gasping for air, but hey, it’s good exercise.

We walked all the way back down the hill, looking at numerous trinkets and doohickeys along the way, but we didn’t really buy anything because the prices were ridiculously high, probably because we were in a solely tourist town. After I offered some of my ice cream to a scary statue of a native woman, we found Jamie wandering in the town square and decided to take a walk to the Ruin Bridge that we saw a sign for earlier in our exploration. Gary and Joyce decided to rest instead of take on the 1.7 KM journey. I figured that since we didn’t hike the 42 KM Inca Trail, then we were inclined to hike this small feat.

We actually made it .4KM before a tour bus stopped and told us to hitch a ride. The driver asked where we were going and we told him the “Ruin Bridge”. It took a few tries for him to understand what we meant because we were walking on the road that lead up to Manchu Picchu and most people who hop on that bus go all the way up the hill to the ruins. Not many want the suspension bridge at the bottom on the hill that is fairly new and only called “Ruin Bridge” because it is at the base of Manchu Picchu. The driver let us off with a polite wave and we were slightly disappointed at our bridge. But it was suspended over the river and gave a wonderful view of the Valley.

We decided that since we were down at the Bridge we should explore and see what else was around. We took the road to the right and started walking. A few yards in front of us was the beginning of a very long staircase made of rocks that lead all the way up to Manchu Picchu. We found out later that the staircase hike was suppose to take an hour to reach the top, but considering it takes the buses 30 minutes to drive the switchbacks, I wasn’t so sure. I also didn’t much feel like finding out as I’d had enough of stairs for a while. Beyond the staircase was a museum accompanied by a Botanical Garden. We all pretended to not have read the sign stating the garden was included in the expensive museum entry fee and ventured into the uneven brush waiting for someone to tell us to leave or pay. We attracted the attention of two museum employees, but they just watched us for a bit before wandering away. I think they don’t get very many people where they’re located and they probably figured we couldn’t do any harm looking at their over grown mess of Botanical plants covered in spiders and other creep crawlies.

There were numerous signs telling what all the dead or dying bushes we were looking at were called, but it still didn’t help us much. Some bananas fascinated Robby, maybe because they grow upside down, and Jamie liked the fact that we found some clothes neatly folded at the base of a cliff leading to the river. The Garden was a perfect setting for Jurassic Park 4 or any of the bad SciFi movies involving ominous, gloomy jungle settings. I tried to get the others to pretend we were being chased by a deadly creature, but they looked at me like I was nuts.

We made it back to town with a few hours to spare before meeting with The Loudes Trek guide who was to tell us how our Manchu Picchu trek would work. The only reason we even knew about the meeting was that we had spotted Ian earlier in the day and he told us they would be meeting later on in the evening. He didn’t know that we would be traveling with his tour group for Manchu Picchu. But then we didn’t know much when we hopped on the Train to Aguas Calientes. Paul just told us people would meet us when we arrived on the train and then we would go from there. We decided to drink a few beers looking out at the ruins from Gary’s balcony before starting the long hike up to the Hot Springs before the meeting.

The hot springs turned out to be swimming pools filled with cold to luke-warm sulfur water. A bunch of kids were chilling in the pools near the base of the springs, while the majority of the adults hung out in the center pool, which turned out to be the warmest at about 70 degrees. This was not what I had planned when I wanted to take a relaxing bath in natural springs. We floated around in the murky water for a bit before noticing a group of 50 or so school children climbing their way up the hill to the springs. Then we decided it was time to head back. We rinsed off at an out door shower that turned out to pour extremely hot water. Now why wasn’t this shower tap hooked into the swimming pools? At least the sulfur water was good for my skin.

At 6:00pm, the seven of us milled around our hotel lobby waiting for the Lourdes Trek people to show up and start the meeting. At 6:15pm I suggested that we venture to the hotel Ian was staying at because they might be having the meeting there. Turns out I was right and that the poor Lourdes Trek leader had no idea we were coming. We showed him the letter we were handed before we left Cusco that stated him as our guide. He finally accepted this and told us how the following day would go. Since Jamie, Robby, and I were the only ones from the Cusco people wanting to get up extremely early, 4:00am, and hike Waynapicchu with the rest of the Lourdes trek people, we got different instructions.

Everyone but the “Old Folks” would be meeting at the bus stop at 4:30am to wait in line for an hour to catch the very first bus up the hill to Manchu Picchu. From there, we would race to the gate entrance of Waynapicchu to secure one of the 400 tickets that allow you to hike the Inca mountain. They can only allow so many people on Waynapicchu a day as to try and preserve the ruins for a few more years and it is a narrow pathway up to a single house on top of the mountain. Robby and I figured that we needed to prove to ourselves that we hiked some of Manchu Picchu, the Inca trail, and so we decided to go for it. The “Old Folks” would be coming later and meet us at a predetermined meeting place so we could begin the tour of the ruins.

After the meeting, the “Old Folks” went to have dinner by themselves, while Robby, Jamie and myself went to hang out with the Lourdes Trek crew who turned out to be people from the 18-35 year old Tucan Travel group. They were all very nice and if not, a little crazy. They’d been traveling together for the last 7 weeks and we definitely a party bunch. But it was a nice reprieve to talk with people are own age. We ended up walking up and down the town hills looking for a good place to eat, or rather, drink, according the Lourdes Trek crew. Robby and I just wanted the bet deal on food and they wanted the best deal on drinks. We ended up getting the drink deal because the pesto pasta I got was some sort of green slime paste tasting like Oregano and moth balls over under cooked linguini. I ended up eating Robby’s dinner. Jamie ended up with a random bug in her enchilada. She wasn’t hungry after that, By 11:00pm we said goodbye to the people because we really wanted a few hours to sleep if we were going to be any good hiking tomorrow. We agreed to meet Jamie in the morning and walk over to the bus stop.

4:00am came all too quickly, but since we didn’t get a good night’s sleep, more like a refreshing power nap, we were ok. The trek leader told us we needed to be at the bus stop early because the line to get on the bus would be very long. When we arrived, we were literally the first people at the stop. I was starting to believe the leader was full of shit, but within 15 minutes the line of people was starting to stretch up the hill towards the hot springs. 5:30am finally came and we boarded the bus. It left the stop when only our tour group was on it, which was weird before they were suppose to fill up. We stopped a mile down the road and ended up picking up the rest of the Younger Tucan group, the people who had hiked the Inca trail. Apparently they hiked really fast and made it to Manchu Picchu the previous evening. Usually we would be meeting the Inca trek people inside the ruins later in the day. A random dog also decided to board the bus with the extra people. 30 minutes later, we were getting our tickets stamped and rushing through the ruins Waynapicchu’s entrance.

I really wanted to take pictures of Manchu Picchu before the tourist over crowded the place, but the people I was following had other ideas. I got off a few blurry shots while running up flights of stairs and across stone walkways. Eventually we made it to the gate and could take a breather. The ticket issuer for Waynapicchu wouldn’t be arriving for another hour, so we had time to finally take in the sites. Machu Picchu is not nearly as big as I had it expected it to be, but it was non-the-less impressive. The city was built as a temple/ritual place that was between the Sacred Valley and the Lost City of the Incas. The bottom part of Manchu Picchu was where the villagers lived and the higher up areas were for rituals. When Manchu Picchu was discovered in 1911 by Spanish Explorer Hiram Bingham, he asked the local nomads currently living there, “what is the name of this city?” The locals didn’t know. Bingham asked what they called the mountain, “Manchu Picchu,” they said and so the name of the ruin was christened.

The Waynapicchu ticket guy finally showed up and we were given the 2nd time slot to climb the mountain – 10am-1pm. We all walked back through ruin and up a rather large stone staircase, mirroring farming and structural tiers to the house at the top of the hill where we would begin the tour of Manchu Picchu. Along the way I ran into the “Old Folks” and told them where our meeting spot would be. It was quite a strenuous hike and I’m not sure how the Inca’s did it. They either have extremely large lungs to make up for the lack of oxygen 1100 feet into the sky or they were very fit. Too bad they weren’t smart enough to invent escalators.

As the Tour Guide told us about Manchu Picchu, the morning fog started to creep down and over the ruins. By 7 am, I could see about 20 feet in front of me. I have to admit that fog covered ruins are very spooky, but fascinating looking, but I was also extremely worried that I had finally made it to Manchu Picchu and all my pictures would show was a fog covered building. I was also at one of the highest places in Manchu Picchu and I wanted a picture of the lay out of the entire place, so the fog had better clear the fuck up. Luckily, as the guide told us about the rock quarry and how the Inca’s built this magnificent city from the stones in front of where we were standing, the fog lifted. Rays of sun poked through the early morning clouds and illuminated the stone village below.

Our tour lasted for about two hours, giving us an hour to wander on our own before the hike to Waynapicchu. All we knew of Waynapicchu was that it was a mountain that over looked the city of Manchu Picchu and that there was a house built on top of it. It was said that there was a great view at the top. I think the house was built to house the look out guard who was on alert for dangers, although, Manchu Picchu being hidden way up on a large mountain, it’s hard to imagine many dangers. But considering the Inca’s vanished after 500 years, maybe they had something to be worried about.

Finally it became our turn to hike Waynapicchu. For some reason, Jamie stayed with us as we huffed and puffed our way up the small mountain. The hike was suppose to take an hour, but no one told us it would be a lot of uneven rocky steps that were extremely steep in some places. As we neared the top of the mountain we had to climb up and through a small cavern that I’m sure a person weighing over 210 pounds would have a little bit of trouble squeezing through. When we finally made it to the top, it was not at all like I thought it would be. I thought there would be a flat plateau with the house near the middle. Instead, there was a pile of jagged rocks with the house a 50 yards below. All the other people who had hiked up the mountain were sitting on the rocks looking out at the spectacular view of the valley below and Manchu Picchu in the distance. There was one rock that jetted out like the “Lion King” rock where we all stood to take pictures because Manchu Picchu was stretched out below it.

When we recovered our breaths enough to hike back down, we crawled down a steep rock face before wandering around the house. A very simple 2 story house missing its roof, but built in a great location, if you didn’t mind the hike up to it. To get back down to the trail, we had to climb, or rather, crawl on our butts, down a series of tightly spaced steps leading down a 85 degree slope. I really need to look up how many people just happen to “fall off” Waynapicchu each year. It’s a little dangerous to climb up and down and in America there would be some serious railings installed along the hillside or people would just be handed binoculars and told to look up. Speaking of binoculars, the Peruvian government is in talks now about preserving Manchu Picchu and by preserving the ruin, I mean, closing it to the public. They will probably let rich people wander the ancient steps for a high price, but normal people, like myself, will only get to view the city from a set of binoculars. It’s said that this will most likely happen within the next 10 year, so if you’ve ever wanted to see the ruins, you should make plans to go soon.

By the time that we landed on solid ground in Manchu Picchu, we were exhausted and very sweaty. We had considered hiking back up to the house we had started the tour at to get the “typical Tourist shot of Manchu Picchu”, but that was out of the question now. All I wanted was a cool drink and a shower. We sat in the shade for a bit truly deciding if we had seen all there was to see of the ruin before deicding, that yes, we were done and ready to go back to town.

Since we no longer had a hotel room to wash up in (we were catching a bus back to Cusco later that evening) we found a place that made us strawberry milkshakes and chilled out. We met the other Tucan group later in the day and hung out with them for a bit before they caught their train back to Cusco. We were on a later train. Eventually it was time to go and we were all a little thankful, if not, just to have a place to sleep for a few hours. Robby and I go to sit with Joan and Dale on the train and we talked about our experiences at Manchu Picchu. Everyone thoroughly enjoy the ruins. When we were back in Cusco we settled into our old hotel rooms, showered, and went to bed.

Robby and I woke up early to get breakfast before we headed to Puno. This would be the first time that we would be riding on Jumbo, the big yellow Tucan school bus. Since the bus sat about 40 people and there were only 19 of us, we all got our own row of two seats. Comfortable enough to try and sleep for a few extra hours. We stopped for lunch on the side of the road in a dusty gully. Paul and a few of the other prepared a lunch of sandwiches and fruit while Robby and I looked around. We noticed a little girls that had come to sit near us. No one else seemed to see her and she looked hungry, so Robby made her a sandwich and handed her some fruit. After that, other people from the group randomly handed her other bits of food. I think she was very happy.

We finally got on the road again and made it to Puno in the late afternoon. Paul gave us a tour of the small town and then set us loose to enjoy the night. We would be traveling to Amanti Island in the morning. Puno is a small town resembling Trujillo and next to Lake Titicaca. Titi and Caca are two Ayranda (the original language of the Incas) words that mean Puma and Great. If you take a picture of the Lake and flip it upside down, it vaguely resembles a Puma with Puma at its tail. Hien, Robby and I went to explore the main tourist street of Puno and buy more souvenirs (because we apparently didn’t have enough). Robby also went to call American Airlines. We had recently learned that Bolivia was having a small Civil War and that flights were being canceled. American Airlines said that they were not canceling their flights, but redirecting them and to call back in a few days to see if anything changed. This made us feel a 100 times better as we didn’t want to be strained in Bolivia during a war.

Back to wandering. Hien, Robby, and I had a nice dinner at a restaurant that seemed to cater to rich, snobby people and for some reason we seemed to be the attention grabbers of the place. For no reason people would give us weird looks. It could’ve been because we were younger than everyone in the place by a good 15 years or that everyone in the place was just plain rude. It would have been awesome to start a food fight, but I don’t think the others would have agreed with me. Oh well. After dinner had a drink with Gary and Joyce before retiring for bed. I think I was still exhausted from hiking around Manchu Picchu.

We got up early because we were taking a boat ride to the Floating Islands of Uros. The floating islands are small thickets of water reeds tied together to create a platform that you can walk on. There are over 100 floating islands still in Peru that have Quechua people living on them. Many of the people survive by making arts and crafts, food, clothing, etc. and then trading them with the different villages on the other islands. A few of the islands, like the one we were going to visit, allow for tourism. For three months a year, boatloads of annoying tourist come to ogle and snap pictures of these people, which I find slightly sad. I know that the Quechua people rely on the money they earn during the months of tourism, but the fact that they have to put themselves out on exhibit is just wrong and the fact that us, as tourist, will get to experience what it is like for them living on the islands, but they will never get to experience what it is like to be a tourist – to travel, see other countries. They’ll forever be bartering and staying with their families. It’s all a little depressing.

Sorry about the rant. Sometimes it gets to me how so many people don’t get to experience even them simplest of things like going to school or eating different kinds of food each night while others get to freely travel between worlds, tasting and experiencing everything. So, we all exited the hotel lobby and were greeted by 8 rickshaw type carts. Paul had arranged for them to take us to the boat pier. I hopped in one of the rickshaws with Hien and then we proceeded to race to the pier, coming up even with Robby and Ian a few times before eventually passing them.

When we made it to the pier there was a small market where we all shopped around to find things for our host families that we would be staying with on Amanti Island. We were asked to spend about 10 Sols each on things for the family. Robby and I bought pasta and milk and then toothbrushes and toothpaste because we were told not to buy candy since the people don’t go to the dentist very often. We figured we would help them prevent cavities. Hien wanted to buy her family a soccer ball because she figured that she would get a family with kids. It turned out that she ended up staying with us and our host family and we had kids, but I’ll get to that later.

We had about an hour boat ride before arriving at the reed islands. As we approached them on the boat they looked like a film set. A bright brown color to the reeds with the huts and boat all built out of the same substance. The Quechua women were all lined up on the arriving side of the island, dressed in bright pinks and yellow looking like mini Umpalumpas await our boat to dock. Four of the women, all about 5 feet tall, pulled our boat to shore and guided us to a row of sitting reeds. They put on a mini demonstration of how they built their islands and lived on them with a mini play about the bartering with other islands. After the play we all got divided into groups and ushered into the Umpalumpas houses. Their huts were single roomed reed buildings containing a bed and some hooks on the wall for clothes. Very minimalist.

Our hsot grabbed Robby and started to dress her in the Quechua outfits. She approached me with the brightly colored clothing, but I refused, instead, opting to take lovely pictures of Robby and the others who were slowly coming out of the nearby huts dressed similarly. I now had some great blackmail pictures to go with an awesome story. After they change of clothes we all were encouraged to look at the crafts the Quechua people had on display and strongly encouraged to buy something as this was the last month of tourism for the people and they would need money to survive on for the coming months. You got to love prearranged tours and their encouragement to support the locals. Sometimes I don’t mind giving money to people, but I don’t want to feel obligated to do so. I’d rather do it out of the kindness of my heart (and yes, sometimes I have a heart).

We stayed on the island for a little while longer, looking at arts and crafts and taking a small boat ride around the island in a reed boat before continuing to Amanti Island. After 3 more hours, we docked at the bottom of the small island and all proceeded to climb to the first landing and meet our new host families. The “mothers” had all gathered to greet us and then take us to their homes to get settled in and have lunch. Robby, Hien, and I were given over to the care of Celya. She said hello and proceeded to walk up the hilly terrain to the houses in the distance. We had to stop several times to catch our breaths, as we weren’t used to the altitude. As we were crossing a small gorge, a small boy came bounding along to greet us, putting us all to shame. We later found out he was Celya’s five year old son, Ruy. Her daughter, Luz (8 years old), was still at school.

Our family turned out to live in the outskirts of town. We were in the middle of the island, but on the side, last house before some trees. It was a two-storey house with an external kitchen and out house. The house was made from mud bricks, but was surprisingly sturdy. The only fault was the kitchen as it had bad ventilation so when you cooked food in the fireplace, all the smoke would bellow into the kitchen, rather than outside. Slightly dangerous with CO2 and all.

All of the people on Amanti Island spoke Quechua, a few spoke Spanish, and I think about one person spoke English. Since we were given only a sheet of paper listing how to say basic things in Quechua, we had to rely on Robby’s broken Spanish and charades to communicate with our family and the other villagers. After we had settled in, we asked if we could help Ceyla and were rewarded with two dull knives and a bowl of potatoes. While Robby and I tried not to cut ourselves, Hien found our troubles entertaining enough to record on her video camera. About halfway through cutting the potatoes, Luz came home. She watched us for a bit with keen interest,

After we managed to peel all our potatoes without cutting ourselves too many times, we figured we would entertain the children while Ceyla finished lunch. We tried to play numerous games, such as Cat’s Cradle, jump rope, and piggy back rides, before eventually doing jumping photos. At first the children had no idea what we wanted them to do, but once they saw Hien jump and we showed them how it looked on the camera, we couldn’t get them to stop jumping. They loved seeing themselves on the photo cameras and the video camera. It was kind of cute, but got quite exhausting.

After a while Ceyla called us into the kitchen to eat lunch. She had made a really good vegetable soup and then potatoes and some sort of cheese that we at first mistook for bread. The meal was very good, except there are only so many potatoes I can eat. As we later learned, the Amanti people eat a lot of potatoes. After lunch we volunteered to wash the dishes, but no one showed us how and so we were pouring water on them from a gas can and mixing in some substance we assumed was soap. I guess the Quechua people are easy going when it comes to maintaining cleanliness of items.

Later in the day Ceyla took us to the soccer arena to hang out with the other tourist on the island. We had to walk up hill for about 20 minutes before reaching the field and at that point I didn’t much care for playing soccer before I found my breath again. I don’t know how the Quechua people do I, but I don’t think it is natural to be able to breath normally 12000 feet into the air. The soccer field was a concrete rectangle about 3/4 the size of a normal soccer field. There were bleacher seats on both sides with numerous other tourist watching the current soccer game or talking amongst themselves. We found our tour group and join them in watching the game.

A little while later the people playing soccer asked if anyone wanted to sub in and I volunteered, along with Ian. We seemed to be the only ones that wanted to play from our tour group. The teams playing currently were locals vs tourist, although most of the tourist looked to be large German men that knew how to kick a ball. I made it about a minute into the game before taking a ball to the face. It hurt like hell, but I was determined to stay in the game and prove I still knew how to play the sport. I managed to play in about three games, lasting an hour and a half. I even got to play goalie for a bit, but after the four goal got past me, I decided to give up the position. Robby even joined in on the fun and did surprisingly well. Actually, way better then me. She could at least stop some of the big guys while they did the two-step around me.

At about 6pm, Ceyla came to get us and take us back to her house for dinner. We were hungry, but we didn’t really want to climb all the way back down the hill to her house, just to come back up in a few hours for the community dance they were throwing for us. But, as we had no choice, we followed obediently. Nothing like a lot of exercise at high altitude to stir up an appetite.

Dinner consisted of more soup and potatoes. I don’t think the potatoes would have tasted so bad if they’d had flavor, but they were boiled potatoes in a bowl. After dinner we were all forced to don Quechua clothes for the dance. It wouldn’t have been so bad had we not had to wear three skirts, two shirts and a wrap around cloth that made you feel like you were wearing a corset and then hike back up the hill to the dance while trying to catch our breaths in the tight material. We also got black head coverings to wear that made us look like Umpalumpa nuns. Very appealing. At least all the other tourists looked he same, so we weren’t too much out of place.

We joined in on a few of the Quechua dances, which resembled 1800 style square dancing. Everyone holds hands and skips around in a big circle, changing directions occasionally, and then dancing through each others intertwined hands. It was fun, but tiring ‘cause the music went on for 10-15 minutes at a time. Eventually it stopped and Quechua people put on a mini dance demonstration to show us how the dances really went. We danced until about 10:00pm before everyone said good night and he headed back to our house for bedtime.

Ok, I sick of writing and I really don’t think anyone reads this blog anymore, so I will say goodbye for now and maybe I’ll finish the last chapter of this journey.