Taking the High Road

This morning begins the voyage to the fabled "Lost City".



It's a lovely ride along the Urubamba, only an hour and a half, and the scenery is beautiful.




There is something ominous and foreboding though, as you head deeper into the jungle and higher into the mountains...




Aguas Calientes (or Machu Picchu Pueblo, as it's been recently renamed) is unsurprisingly purely a tourist rest stop, full of internet cafés, pizza joints, and souvenir booths.



A lot of people come through here and go onto MP and then back to Cusco all in one day, but I want to see it at sunrise, so I'll be spending the night. Since I had all day to kill, I set out on a hike along the river.





I'd heard there was a waterfall out here somewhere...



I don't know what this is or what it's for, but it looked so out of place and old-timey I had to snap it.




Just follow the railroad tracks until you see the sign, they said.



"Where is everybody?"



"Through here?"

Eventually I found the entrance, paid my ten soles, and followed the trail.

Warning: It's gonna get a little National Geographic here, so if you're not a fan of pictures of flowers and insects, you might want to scroll down a while.






Deeper and deeper, the brush getting thicker, the air getting wetter...







Butterflies!







And some more pretty flowers...





Just a little further...



Finally I found it, Mandor Waterfall.




How about that tripod/timer action?




I actually really enjoy hiking. I know that must be hard to believe, given my physical condition and proclivity for the sedentary pastimes, but I dig it.




You get to see the natural world, get some good (non-boring) exercise, and enjoy a feeling of accomplishment.





What I hate is that whenever you hike somewhere, you always have to hike back. It was a lot less fun walking back over a mile and a half of jagged rocks and railroad tracks, knowing that a cool refreshing waterfall wouldn't be waiting at the end, just a tiny hostal room and hundreds of backpackers.



And they're still building, so more and more hostals are no doubt on the horizon.

Evidently a couple of years ago there was a plan to put in some kind of funicular (HA!) system to the ruins, which would allow even more people daily to see the site, but UNESCO threatened to remove its World Heritage Site status if environmental concerns were not addressed.

Tomorrow, at dawn, we find out what all the fuss is about.