Friday, June 15, 2012

Machu Picchu!

Stunning. Awe-inspiring. Overwhelming. But enough about me, let's talk about Machu Picchu.

Built on crags in the cloud forest, Machu Picchu was still under construction when it was abandoned at the time of the Spanish conquest. No-one knows why - could be disease, drought, or just the expectation of falling to the Spanish (note to self: when I create a magnificent culture, ensure it has written language to help future tourists). But the Inca left, and then Machu Picchu stayed, lonely and only visited by local villagers.

The rocks for the building largely came from the site, but the sand used in the terraces came from the river bed far below. Tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of it. Each square metre of terrace used about a tonne of sand, and there are literally thousands of metres of terrace. The unending back-breaking labour of bringing that up from the river ... I can't think of words that would actually give it justice. And that's just the sand - imagine the quarrying, shaping, polishing. All with voluntary labour. It is beyond awe-inspiring.

We all took hundreds of photos. Here are some.

Effy giving us the low-down on the town.

Effy, Mark, and a local lady who wanted to join in.

The Temple of the Sun.

Even Mark was taking pictures.

Paul checks that his brain hasn't been vaporized by wonder.

Plumbing, Inca-style.

The stone pegs sticking out is how they tied down their roofs.

The inca's used perfectly horizontal solid stone water dishes carved into the mountain rock to reflect the night sky and study the stars. We used them for a different purpose.

Maintenance of the site is ongoing, and the location of every stone is recorded electronically and also the old-fashioned way.

A view of the round rocks that they sat under the foundations, to help them withstand the rocking caused by earthquakes.

But sometimes it wasn't quite enough.

Where they brought the sand from.

Whilst they protected against earthquakes, they didn't protect against subsidence (well, no-one is perfect!). Here the soil permanently shaded by the northern wall stays wet and soft. The stones have sunk half a metre into the soil after 500 years.

The temple of the two windows. Hiram Bingham (the first scientific discoverer) clearly couldn't count.

There are more ruins on the top of that peak (we didn't even try).

Every good ruin has a few alpaca.

The only known astronomical sundial the Spaniards didn't discover and destroy.

Nicole and Kim taking in the sights.

King of all I survey.

I then went to visit the Inca bridge. I was told I wouldn't be allowed to cross - and soon found out why.

Feeling very brave. Of course, Nicole out-did me by casually standing on a rock wall with hundreds of metres of shear drop behind her. Why are women always braver than me?

A final view and pose.

Having now 'done' Machu Picchu, tomorrow is our last full day in Peru, a chance to reflect, rest, and do that last-minute shopping!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Day 7 - the end of the trekking part of our adventure!

It's hard to believe, but the walking part of our adventure is coming to an end. Today we have a leisurely descent followed by a train ride to Machu Picchu township.

For a change Effy is telling the truth - the walk down is lovely. We are heading for Ollaytantambo - an Inca town, and as they say in the renovation trade 'bursting with original features'. Some quite surprising.

Dawn over our camp.

I have just experienced the joys of camping for the last time. Maybe forever.

I head up the hill for an early-morning visit to the Inca fortress there and a view over our campsite.

A gorgeous old native tree. The vast majority have been cut down for firewood. They have a campaign to plant and re-forest.

A view of the valley from the fortress.

The rocks of the fortress are mortared together with a biological concrete of mud, pebbles and cactus extract. Impressive to be still standing after 500 years of rainy seasons!

Feeling good with the end in sight.

The incredible terraces built by the the Inca.

Paul getting back to his Catholic roots.

We reached Ollaytantambo around midday and it is a stunning city. As well as wandering the streets we visited a house maintained virtually as life was during the Inca times.

Ok, so not everything in the town is 100% Incan.

The Peruvian flag flying proudly.

A classic view.

The inside of one of the single-room as-in-Inca times house. Please note the drying fish, llama and corn in the rafters. I hadn't realized they already had retail and fluorescent lights back then.

The live-in food supply. Do they look nervous to you?

The ancestral shrine on the wall (actually a practice encouraged by the Spaniards to break the Inca tradition of keeping the mummified corpse intact). The skulls are from the ancestors of the people in the house, keeping a safe watch over them.

A few last-minute purchases ...

Views of some of the massive ruins.

After lunch we set off by train to the village outside Machu Picchu.

The landscape is becoming much more lush as we start descending into the cloud forest (the real Amazonian rain forest is still further east).

A gorgeous double rainbow.

We finally reach Machu Picchu township. Giddy with happiness, we join with a couple of locals for a photo.

Our restaurant that night had a nice Peruvian version of the Last Supper. Who were we to not join in?

Clearly things had gotten a bit out of hand when Paul tried to re-create his University-days hairstyle using Nicole's assistance:

Tomorrow ... tomorrow is Machu Picchu, the culmination of our Peruvian adventure!