Maximum Picchu

The day didn't start out well, as I arose at 4 AM to get into a cold shower (C'mon, really? The name of the town is Hot Water and I can't get any in the hostal?) and went out in the freezing rain to catch the first bus up the hill.



There was already a line, and the vendedores were already out, selling hot mate de coca and cold sandwiches.



Up a winding road, we climbed the mountain. One of the first ones inside, I scrambled up to the lookout point for the sunrise, supposedly one of the most breathtaking sights on earth.




But mainly, I stood there, shivering and dripping, looking out at this for two hours.



Almost...




Even the llamas seemed cold and bored.



This is what I've been looking forward to for 2 months?



Around 8 the sun offered a slight tease... but mostly we were looking at this.



At one point, I got so frustrated I started following a little bird around.




Then:



But it still took another half an hour for the big one, Wayna Picchu, to emerge from the cloud cover.



Well, time to get one of me, no?





Tired of this angle yet? All right, we'll climb down and look around in the ruins.







You can see how the Spanish never found this place. It's at the top of a mountain, surrounded by other, taller peaks.





Here I am, forming the sacred condor. See, my head is the head, and the two mountains are my wings spread in flight.



So then, for reasons I'm still not entirely clear on (I think I may have heard my mother's voice telling me "you only visit Machu Picchu once") I decided to climb Wayna Picchu. That's that big one, on the right, nearly 1000 ft higher than Machu Picchu.



Which I did. Somehow. It only took me 35 minutes (I've heard the record is 15) but it was one of the most difficult things I've ever done in my life. Wheezing and sweating and enduring the encouragement of others without having the breath to respond. "You're almost there!" "It's sooo worth it!" "You're gonna need to pace yourself."

Look how tiny Machu Picchu looks from up here.



Then I found out I wasn't at the top. To get to the top, you had to shimmy through a narrow (muddy and wet) cave, scale a rock, scamper up a wooden ladder, then find a perch on top of some boulders so you didn't go plummetting down into the Urubamba, hundreds of feet below.



Kinda looks like I'm touching the sky here, don't it?



Uh, yeah, there wasn't exactly a place to get into hair and makeup up there, so I'm not really looking my best, but who cares?



Then, rather than just go down the way I came up, I decided to swing around the other side of the mountain to see the Temple of the Moon.



Down a tiny narrow staircase, each step barely wide enough for one of my size 13s, clinging to the wall for dear life, five hundred year old Incan stone masonry the only thing keeping me from certain death.



At some points, you're literally hanging on to a metal cable. Of course, by now I had run out of water so was hallucinating that I was Indiana Jones.




Also by now, most of the tour groups had either gone to lunch or back to their hotels, so I could take some pictures unimpeded by brightly colored fleeces.



I liked this. The condor's head and neck are carved in the ground. But his wings are the natural rock formation behind.



Back where I started, maybe I didn't get the classic sunrise postcard shot, but this ain't bad, right?



That bird again!

So then, even though I was totally dehydrated, my knees were aching, and my clothes entirely sweated through, I decided to do another hike, out to Intipunku, the Sun Gate, which is where those crazy enough to hike the Inca Trail get their first view of Machu Picchu.



Let me be clear about this. I walked away from Machu Picchu, then back (did I mention how much I hate hiking back from places?)




The view from the Sun Gate. In the middle is Machu Picchu, below that the bus road we took up this morning, and to the right is Wayna Picchu.





Exhausted, I took my last look at the fabled Lost City of the Incas, and started down the mountain.

A bus and a train later, I was back in Ollantaytambo, taking a much-needed and wonderful shower, then a delicious dinner, including a giant bottle of Cusqueña beer, and right to bed.