Day 2 Machu Picchu!

My day started off at 3:30 a.m. I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep, which is very frustrating when I knew I didn’t have to get up until 4:30. We got up and ate breakfast and went to the train station where we had a two-hour bus ride to the town of Machu Picchu. We dropped our things off at our hotel Gringo Bill’s (owned by an American, incidentally, named Bill) and then went in search of something to eat.
Eddie encouraged us to eat something and then take a snack up to Machu Picchu with us because food and water was really expensive up in the ruins. For example, a bottle of water is 2 soles (60 cents) in the town, but 12 soles ($4) in the ruins. So I bought a Snickers, a water, and some crackers. Then as I sat there waiting for everyone to gather to get on the bus, people were coming down with these sandwiches that looked good enough to buy. So Kimberly and I decided to go in search of sandwiches. A very long story short: it took forever to get these sandwiches and the group had to wait for us and it was our fault we were late. I’m glad I got the sandwich, I had already been up for four hours and I normally eat lunch four hours after I get up. So I ate lunch at 9 a.m.? Whatever way you’d like to look at it.
When we got on the bus it took us about 15 minutes to get to the big hill/mountain that we have to get up to get to Machu Picchu. I kind of thought I was going to die. It was a one-way, curvy, windy, dirt road. As we turned each corner there was a possibility that we were going to run into a bus. A few times we encountered another bus, it freaked the tourists out, but the bus drivers always seem to avoid each other.


A view of the road from up top.


When we got to the top almost everyone had to go to the bathroom. The line was very long. So I waited with a few other girls and we saw this post with a message of peace in four languages. Here I am with English and Spanish.

We walked up the steps and into the sanctuary of Machu Picchu. I can’t tell you how amazing this place is. Neither words nor pictures could do it any sort of justice in the tranquility that comes with being inside. I have been to several ruins sites and each time it amazes me. I try to imagine 10,000 people living there, having businesses, houses, families, churches, social hierarchy, government, and organized lives.
Machu Picchu is different from the Mexican ruins I have visited (which include: Chiza Itza, Palenque, Tiotiuacan, and Huasteca Potosina.
1. It’s up in a mountain. It’s much greener than I imagined it. The grass is very green and the mountains are green/brown. I wasn’t there during the rainy season, which is when everything is really green. What made the Incans think that this would be a good place to build a city? Furthermore, what would make an anthropologist/archeologist find a place like that?
2. There are distinct architectural differences between Incan building and Indigenous Mexican building. Incans have the famous way of putting rocks together where you can’t even put a sheet of paper between two rocks. The walls they built were meant to be earthquake proof. For the most part they have stood the test of time. The Incans used some strategies to make their cities earthquake and time proof: interlocking the rocks, the trapezoid shape, and the incline.



The rocks are fit together perfectly thought the interlocking system. One rock has a feminine part and the other a masculine part and they interlock to make a strong bond. They also have a trapezoid shape and the wall is kind of inclined.


This is a wall that’s having a little bit of difficulty staying together after withstanding so many earthquakes.


Me in a trapezoid-shaped door way.

One of the girls on the trip asked me if I was ready to make one of the biggest climbs of my life. I replied in the affirmative. This is something I will always remember. I remember reading about Machu Picchu in Spanish classes, but I never imagined I would go there. It’s one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.

The weather up there was difficult to predict. They said it could rain at any moment and it would be cold. When the sun wasn’t out it was windy and chilly, but when the sun was out, it was brutal. I was not prepared at all for that, which for a fair-skinned, blue-eyed blonde is not good. I could feel my scalp and face start to burn. I had put on SPF 45 sun block, but it wasn’t a match for that sun. Luckily, someone offered me a hat, and that was really nice, it saved my face and my scalp from being burnt to a crisp. I had worn a lot of layers and slowly, one-by-one, the layers came off until my last layer of a long-sleeved Grand Valley shirt.
A group of boys walked by and one was wearing a Michigan State University jacket and another was wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt and I wanted to see if they were from Michigan. So, another girl from my group who is from Ann Arbor, Michigan and goes to Eastern Michigan University and I decided to go talk to them. As it turns out, they are from Michigan, but they don’t go to school there. All four were from a town south of Kalamazoo but went to school just over the border in Indiana. We asked them which school and they said a small, private one. Then we asked them what they were doing in Peru and they said they were spending two weeks in Lima, two weeks in Cusco, and two weeks doing service work. The program was through their school. The small, private one located in Indiana.


Jessie and me

After Eddie led us through a two-hour tour of Machu Picchu he wanted to take us up to La Puerta del Sol (The Gate of the Sun) where all the famous pictures of the ruins are taken. He told us it would take three hours to go up and down, plus any time we wanted to stay up there. It was supposed to take us an hour-and-a-half to walk up and then down. I couldn’t imagine it taking that long, plus, I couldn’t imagine physically walking straight up for that long. I guess we’re all in better shape than I thought. It only took us 45 minutes to walk up.


The traditional view of Machu Picchu.


Whoever took this picture didn’t realize I wanted Machu Picchu in the picture. The site should be to the left.


This picture was taken on the way back down. It looks like I’m photoshopped (is that a word?) myself in, but I promise I didn’t.

I walked down with Teryn and Mary Beth (she’s from Minnesota) and when we got back down to the sanctuary we sat in a place where no one else was and we talked for a while.
We came back down the mountain at 4:30 and went to our hotel and then went out for dinner. We had pizza and it was delicious. Then we went in search of ice cream and Internet. We were successful. The ice cream was good and the Internet was slow, but it was all good. I went to bed at 10 that night with the intention of sleeping in until 8!