Machu fuckin’ Picchu
Aug. 8th, 2018 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyI came, I saw, I managed not to fall off!
Seriously, this is one of those things that I’ve wanted to for ages and that Anya has wanted to do for ages and that we’ve been talking about doing for at least a decade. And we got to do it. And it was every bit as amaze balls as I’d hoped.
So to get to Machu Picchu, you need to take a train, either from Cuzco or the Sacred Valley, which was where we were. The train is probably the loveliest train in all of existence. It has little tables with alpaca wool placemats and two sets of windows so that you can see the landscape as you pass, and they describe the interesting features in English and Spanish. The rest of the time, they’re playing Peruvian flute music. All transit should be more like this.
Then you reach the town, which is actually called Hot Springs but no one calls it that, on account of it being at the foot of one of the icon of the Incan Empire.
(Note that Machu Picchu was not actually that important a city. Cuzco was the capital of the empire; Machu Picchu was a city of about 700-800 people. But unlike other Incan cities, the Spanish never got to trash it (it was abandoned before the invasion and wasn’t discovered by Westerners until 1911), so it’s largely intact, and where it’s not, there was enough of it to reconstruct). There is something to be said for building your city on top of a really inaccessible mountain.)
Anyway, from the town, assuming that you’re not one of those hardcore types who hikes the whole way up or worse, takes the Incan Trail for four days, you can catch a bus to take you halfway up to where the interesting stuff is. It’s still a fairly intense hike, though not as steep as yesterday’s. Actually, the bus is scarier. I’m not afraid of heights per se, but I do have one particularly intense phobia, and it has to do with narrow, winding roads where you have a sheer cliff on one side and the edge on the other. So I spent the 20 minute drive up convinced that I was going to die.
It was, however, entirely worth it. I can’t do it justice in pictures let alone words. It’s breathtaking. Not literally, it’s actually below Cuzco and Sacred Valley, altitude-wise. But if you can imagine being in a place that’s so beautiful you could cry—well, it’s like that.
We spent a few hours hiking around and seeing the ruins. You can basically swing a camera around and it’ll catch something wonderful. Or it will hit a tourist. Or a llama.
One of the guys in our tour group, in what was simultaneously the cheesiest and most romantic gesture I have ever seen, proposed to his girlfriend at the top. She said yes.
Now we’re back at the hotel, full of food and alcohol, and the room is cute and there are bathrobes and fuzzy blankets and I feel as though I have accomplished a serious life goal.
A thousand years later, the photos finally uploaded. Enjoy!
Seriously, this is one of those things that I’ve wanted to for ages and that Anya has wanted to do for ages and that we’ve been talking about doing for at least a decade. And we got to do it. And it was every bit as amaze balls as I’d hoped.
So to get to Machu Picchu, you need to take a train, either from Cuzco or the Sacred Valley, which was where we were. The train is probably the loveliest train in all of existence. It has little tables with alpaca wool placemats and two sets of windows so that you can see the landscape as you pass, and they describe the interesting features in English and Spanish. The rest of the time, they’re playing Peruvian flute music. All transit should be more like this.
Then you reach the town, which is actually called Hot Springs but no one calls it that, on account of it being at the foot of one of the icon of the Incan Empire.
(Note that Machu Picchu was not actually that important a city. Cuzco was the capital of the empire; Machu Picchu was a city of about 700-800 people. But unlike other Incan cities, the Spanish never got to trash it (it was abandoned before the invasion and wasn’t discovered by Westerners until 1911), so it’s largely intact, and where it’s not, there was enough of it to reconstruct). There is something to be said for building your city on top of a really inaccessible mountain.)
Anyway, from the town, assuming that you’re not one of those hardcore types who hikes the whole way up or worse, takes the Incan Trail for four days, you can catch a bus to take you halfway up to where the interesting stuff is. It’s still a fairly intense hike, though not as steep as yesterday’s. Actually, the bus is scarier. I’m not afraid of heights per se, but I do have one particularly intense phobia, and it has to do with narrow, winding roads where you have a sheer cliff on one side and the edge on the other. So I spent the 20 minute drive up convinced that I was going to die.
It was, however, entirely worth it. I can’t do it justice in pictures let alone words. It’s breathtaking. Not literally, it’s actually below Cuzco and Sacred Valley, altitude-wise. But if you can imagine being in a place that’s so beautiful you could cry—well, it’s like that.
We spent a few hours hiking around and seeing the ruins. You can basically swing a camera around and it’ll catch something wonderful. Or it will hit a tourist. Or a llama.
One of the guys in our tour group, in what was simultaneously the cheesiest and most romantic gesture I have ever seen, proposed to his girlfriend at the top. She said yes.
Now we’re back at the hotel, full of food and alcohol, and the room is cute and there are bathrobes and fuzzy blankets and I feel as though I have accomplished a serious life goal.
A thousand years later, the photos finally uploaded. Enjoy!
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Date: 2018-08-09 03:23 am (UTC)I had never actually heard Peruvian pipe players before I came to the city in 1980; now it's one thing I'll never get out of my head!
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Date: 2018-08-09 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 03:25 am (UTC)(LOL/AWWW at the proposal guy)
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Date: 2018-08-09 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-08-09 01:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 11:26 am (UTC)Also your bedroom appears to have a quote by Aristotle and I love it.
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Date: 2018-08-09 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-09 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 03:09 am (UTC)*continues delightedly absorbing your travelogue*
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Date: 2018-08-10 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 02:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-10 10:12 pm (UTC)