We were up before 5am and on the bus from our hotel to the train station in Ollantaytambo about an hour from our hotel by 6:15.
We were on the RailPeru Vista Dome train and it was quite nice!
We had beautiful views all along the Urubamba River.
That is our tour guide, Washington, standing next to Tobey. We were served snack boxes and tea, and had live entertainment on board!
There were musicians and some unusual dancers in the last car of the train.
Once the train arrived at Aguas Caliente, or Machu Picchu Village, we had to wait to board a shuttle bus to the actual entrance to Machu Picchu and what an experience that was!
We had the 10:00am boarding and walked up that hill with the line of people and waited, and waited, and waited - almost an hour before we were on the 30 minute bus ride to the entrance.
A view of the town.
FINALLY, we arrived! First a brief history of Machu Picchu, then lots of pictures.
Machu Picchu is a 15th Century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of Peru's Andes Mountains. It is on a ridge at 7970 feet and believed to be occupied from around 1420 to 1530AD. It is renowned for its sophisticated dry stone walls that fuse huge blocks without the use of mortar. The buildings have astronomical alignments and panoramic views. Machu Picchu is an iconic symbol of the Inca Empire's architechtural and engineering prowess and features a sophisticated water managment system and terraced fields. Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it was brought to international attention by a United States professor, Hiram Bingham in 1911. Why wasn't this site destroyed by the Spanish when they arrived in Peru? Because it was a royal estate, many Incas may have not have known about it and because of that, the Spaniards had likely never heard of it either.
It is located in the cloud forest and we started off with a bit of overcast skies, which turned sunny! It rains over 200 days a year here, but we were lucky - no rain! We were warned about mosquitos, but got lucky there, too. No bites! We did get a little sunburned, but not bad.
About 2,500 people visit Machu Picchu every day! We were on a 3 hour tour, while many others only get a 45 minute tour. We hiked up and up and up, often stopping to let other groups go by.
This is the iconic view that most folks think of when they hear Machu Picchu.
From this position, we turned and looked up at the "caretaker's house" and saw a couple of llamas hanging out.
We wondered what the bright green tarp was in our view. Apparently, they used to allow helicoptors to land in that area. There was a huge monolith that they moved for that purpose and now they are replacing it in its original position.
If you look at the V in the picture below you can see where the folks that hike the Inca Trail come out and get their first good look at Machu Picchu.
There were terraced fields here, too.
Several of the structures on the right were used for housing.
The structure below has a huge altar in the front.
This is near the alter area with the three windows looking to the west.
There are stairs, stairs and more stairs.
All too soon it was time to leave and head back to catch our bus back to Machu Picchu Village. Again, we had to wait almost 45 minutes to have an empty bus. We had about 20 minutes to shop before catching the train again. We had dancing again, but this time it was the female dancer and she picked Tobey as her partner. See video here: https://youtube.com/shorts/sVg-mZuRbPI?feature=share
The attendants served snacks and tea again, then treated us to a fashion show as we made our way back UP the mountain to town to catch our bus back to the hotel. The picture below shows where the train stops to let "trekers" off and the start the 4-day Inca Trail hike. I think I am too old to give that a try, but definitely wish we could have done it when we were younger!
We finally arrived back at our hotel about 6:45 - more than 12 hours after leaving this morning. We ordered a pizza to share from the hotel bar and are calling it a day. Tomorrow we have another early day leaving the hotel at 7:30 heading to the airport in Cusco for a flight to Lima. There has been so much packed into this trip, it's hard to remember everything!
Several of the structures on the right were used for housing.
The structure below has a huge altar in the front.
This is near the alter area with the three windows looking to the west.
There are stairs, stairs and more stairs.
All too soon it was time to leave and head back to catch our bus back to Machu Picchu Village. Again, we had to wait almost 45 minutes to have an empty bus. We had about 20 minutes to shop before catching the train again. We had dancing again, but this time it was the female dancer and she picked Tobey as her partner. See video here: https://youtube.com/shorts/sVg-mZuRbPI?feature=share
The attendants served snacks and tea again, then treated us to a fashion show as we made our way back UP the mountain to town to catch our bus back to the hotel. The picture below shows where the train stops to let "trekers" off and the start the 4-day Inca Trail hike. I think I am too old to give that a try, but definitely wish we could have done it when we were younger!
We finally arrived back at our hotel about 6:45 - more than 12 hours after leaving this morning. We ordered a pizza to share from the hotel bar and are calling it a day. Tomorrow we have another early day leaving the hotel at 7:30 heading to the airport in Cusco for a flight to Lima. There has been so much packed into this trip, it's hard to remember everything!
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