Machu Picchu

We woke up at our own ruin of Llactapata yesterday morning, and walked down camino 122 towards the hydroelectric powerplant at Urubamba river. The 600 meter descent took the most out of our legs, but to our great delightment, there just happened to be a banana planation at the very bottom of the hill. Since we are such nice and polite persons, we found the owner and bought 6 freshly picked bananas. Conclusion: Dirty bananas taste better than clean bananas. We enjoyed the bananas with a Twix, and Anita had a refreshing bath in the river. After jumping train tracks for 11 km, we finally came to Aguas Calientes, which is the entry town to Machu Picchu. The accomodation price range spanned from 20 USD to 1200 USD, where a 3 star hotel would cost us 250 USD. We found the cheapest place in town, bargined hard, and got the price down to a decent 11 USD. The lovely place was situated next to the railway tracks, and the building shook every time a train hurried past us.

We woke up at 0500 this morning, fully determined to beat the crowd up to Machu Picchu. Only the first 400 are admitted to visit Huayna Picchu. It was raining heavily outside, and the determination sank dramatically. There is no point going up on a mountain peak in soaking rain, when everything is foggy. We therefore slept to 0700, and set of a bit later. The clouds were lightening and the future looked much brighter. Machu Picchu has been our main goal for almost two months now, and it was a bit strange to finally be here. Our expectations were sky high.

Machu Picchu was not a diappointment. It is a fantastic site that must be visited. There are over 2000 visitors to the site every single day, and the masses of people were handled in an impressive manner. Machu Picchu has what a tourist wants: Extravagant constructions, exciting history, nature interaction, mysteries, and not at least loads of green areas where you can sit down and be impressed. We are heading out of Aguas Calientes with a backpacker train tomorrow morning through the town of Ollantaytambo. There will be buses taking us on to Cusco from there.

We are now faced with the greatest challenge so far. Machu Picchu was the only set goal we had for our tripbefore leaving Europe, and we have now achieved the goal. We are planing to buy two bicycles in Cusco, and head north on wheels. Unfortunately, the largest bicycle shop in Cusco sold neither trays or luggage bags. They do not do that stuff here. Maybe someone can make it for us?

At least some very good news: We just found out that Theresa, Lisa, Ulli and Nanni are in Cusco, and we are very much looking forward to meet them there tomorrow.

Pictures to be found here: http://picasaweb.google.com/eirik.sunde/MollapataMachuPicchuOct2008