MACHU PICCHU

Yesterday, sunday the 13th of December we ascended this famous site.

Maybe I didn't mention clearly, that as we took the hitch from Santa Maria, we mingled with this group, who had a guide, who also cut a deal for us. We paid 100 soles (cca USD 35) and got a room, dinner, breakfast, entrance to Machu Picchu site (discounted based on my ancient ISIC, even though first they thought it was false, then they probably realized that if I wanted a false one I wouldn't get something so obscure... btw. Peru is obviously one of the countries where ISIC and the like are really usefull - this was a 50% discount) and a guided walk on the site for 2 hours. Good deal.

So the whole group planned very early morning ascent, to be able to visit the second site there - Wayna Picchu- where to only 400 persons daily are allowed. That required our waking up at 4.

So we started of the hostel at 4:15 roughly, ascending the high mountain of Machu Picchu on foot. It was still dark when we started, and a foggy dawn came during our ascent. It is some 1600 steps to get there. I counted them to keep my morals high, and got to 1574, but I wasn't accurate at the bottom:) Counting allowed me to make a short break after each 50 steps to catch my breath, and a longer one at 800 and 1200.

Finally, we got to the entrance area (with hotel and buses:) at around 6 (looks very modern there). There we joined the cue for entrance and met our guide, who luckily have figured out my student discount in the meantime as mentioned.

Following was the guided tour to the very Machu Picchu site with our guide. I will shortly recall what Ive remembered:

Machu Picchu isn't the true name of the settlement, which is unknown, because the Quechuas used nods instead of written letters to conserve information, a way that wasn't fully decrypted untill today. Machu Picchu means "Old Mountain" and is the name of the mountain where the settlement is located.

INKAs were kings of the Quechua nation, and there were just like 14 of them. (first according to the tradition - Manko Kapak - comes from the Isla del Sol on Titicaca) Now there are still some Quechuas living in nearby town Quillabamba. Quechuas are supposed to live very long, our guide claimes that the world's oldest man with 130 years is Quechua and that some used to live up to 150 years or more. (if they climbed up the steps every now and then, no wonder they were in excellent condition:) Our guide also claims to be of Quechua descvent which might well be true, and he was a nice guy, anyways:) Principal sites of the Quechuas were three - Cuzco, Machu Picchu and Quillabamba. Quechuas fled to the mountaintops after the Spanish conquested Cuzco, destroying all paths and bridges not to be found. Later they again escaped from Machu Picchu to Wayna Picchu in much the same manner.

Machu Picchu was a place for noble people, other Quechuas from other provinces and dialects came here to receive schooling and training. Importand religious and prestigious affairs concentrated on the calendar based on observing solar solstices and progress of the suns path troughout the year. Then the religion had something called "triada andina" where there were three worlds much like in christianity: the world above, whose deity is Condor, the lived world where people are, whose deity was Puma, and the world below, underworld, where the deity was a serpent.

The whole site was able to support cca 500 persons with on-site agriculture.

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After that we took off to go to Wayna Picchu, which presents other ascent of 1200 steps. It is much worth doing for the view and the location, even higher and even more magnificent. Unfortunatelly I had also some digestion problems, which were messing up my concentration. I had to resolve it in the intentions of the nice czech slogan "seru-v-peru". When we finally got to the top - the route sometimes could be classified as no. 1 difficulty level in rockclimbing scales - the wonderfull view was our compensation.

This site, much smaller, is on a top of even less accessible mountain, all the mountains here are very steep, almost vertical-faced, which makes them tought to ascend. This one - Wayna Picchu - Young Mountain - is even several hundred meters above Machu Picchu with a beautiful, practically 360 degree view from the top.

After reaching the top I found a sofa-like shaped rock at the very top, where I had spent a very happy hour and something. I had to think about an old song by "Buty", one of he first to make me dream of visiting exotic places, which by then I thought was probably just a dream. Now at that very moment I was moved by my dream coming true. Didn't really plan it, it somehow just happened, perhaps because I was attracted to the same thing again and again, even if in different times and contexts.

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After all that, the descent, again on foot (so we did 2800 steps up and 2800 steps down) and buying a trainticket to Cuzco. We were all so tired we couldn't even think