Not many people visit Peru without a visit to its #1 attraction: Machu Picchu! I knew I wanted to do a hike there, but timing-wise, it would have been difficult to do one of the 4 or 5 day treks. I also was not sure I wanted to camp and hike that many days in a row! So the 2 day/1 night option, where you hike part of the Inca trail and then sleep in a hotel seemed like a good compromise.
It was more difficult than I expected to find a trek going during the window of time that I needed. That's a downside of visiting in the low season, though the upside is you can book a few days in advance instead of months in advance! Alpaca Expeditions had a group going, so I was able to join them.
I stayed overnight in Ollantaytambo, which meant I got to be picked up at 5:45, instead of the 4 AM Cusco pickup. Hooray for "sleeping in!" We got on a train, and hopped off at Kilometer 104, which would be the start of our hike.
Ready to go!
My group consisted of myself and two families, both with teenage kids. It was a great education on what it’s like to travel with teens (I think it requires a lot of patience :)! For the most part, everyone was well behaved (or just absorbed in their smart phones), but one of the families completely skipped the second day, where we visited Machu Picchu, because the kids didn’t want to wake up early! I ended up making great friends with the Canadian family, and now I have the offer of a place to stay if I ever visit Vancouver!
The Inca trail scenery was much more jungle-y than I expected. It was lush, humid, and there were tons of orchids and a couple waterfalls along the way.
Scenes from the trail (I actually dropped my phone right before this but my guide was able to retrieve it! Luckily I didn't drop off a steep mountainside)
The views weren't bad :)
After about 3 hours, we reached some ruins known as Wiñaywayna or “Forever Young,” featuring the terracing and stone houses that I’ve become quite familiar with after a few days in the sacred valley.
We had lunch nearby, at a camp set up for those doing the longer trek. The lunch was prepared by chefs in a tent, and was amazing- those guys can cook better in the middle of nowhere than I can at home!
After lunch, we encountered rain for about 30 minutes. My worst nightmare was that it would rain the whole time and I’d be miserable. I even bought (cheap) pants and a jacket just in case, but all I ended up needing was my $1 poncho. Luckily the rain stopped pretty quickly and we enjoyed dry weather for the rest of our hike.
After hiking a couple more hours after lunch, we reached the Sun Gate! This is where we got our first glimpse at Machu Picchu from afar. After doing just a short part of the Inca trail there, it was incredible to see the ancient city nestled in the middle of the mountains- its truly incredible that they managed to build it there!
Yay we made it, and had to take a picture with our company's sign to commemorate the ccasion. (That one kid totally ruined this photo)
We took some photos, and then headed down for a closer look at Machu Picchu. We didn’t go into the city (that would have to wait until tomorrow), but got a lot of great pictures from nearby. The ruins were almost empty at that hour, about 4 PM, so we were able to not have 500 tourists in the background of our photos.
With my new Canadian friends
Worn out from our early wakeup call and 8 hours of hiking, we headed down to Aguas Cliente, aka Machu Picchu Pueblo, to check in to our hotels and enjoy some dinner. I have to say, I was pretty content with the hotel option and happy not to be sleeping in a tent!
The next day it was another early wakeup call- we met up at 5AM to catch an early bus up to Machu Picchu. Our guide was the last one to show- after 5:30, and seemed a biiiit hungover from the night before. There was a big Peru vs. Venezuela football match on, and he seems like he enjoyed himself watching it! When we arrived, he gave us a 2 hour tour of the site (still good, whether he was hungover or not). I thought the benefit of going early would be to visit when it was relatively empty, but there were TONS of other groups there. It didn’t bother me too much, you kind of have to expect that at one of the world’s top tourist attractions.
Turistas!
What I loved about being there so early was the morning mist and clouds on the mountains- it made the whole place feel more magical and mysterious.
Machu Picchu in the morning
After the tour, my Canadian friends left to relax back at their hotel, but I’d signed up to hike Machu Picchu mountain. It’s not as popular as Wayna Picchu (the big mountain you can see behind the ruins in all the photos) but I’d heard that one is not good for people who afraid of heights, so I went for the less scary option.
The hike was not that impressive to me. It was all stairs, for an hour and a half up, and an hour down. The scenery along the way was not that different from the Inca trail, and the view from the top was nice, but not all that different from what we saw at the Sun Gate. The trekking company I used charged $75 for the ticket to the mountain (the actual price is only $15, so I wasn’t thrilled about the markup, but it was the only way to buy it)….and I don’t think it was worth the price! For someone who hadn’t hiked the Inca trail, maybe it would have been more rewarding.
Didn't enjoy the hike that much, but still took a pic at the top!
After hiking the mountain, I had to meet my guide at 1:00 in town, so I grabbed some quick lunch to go and found him. I was really annoyed to learn that a) my train back to Ollaytaytambo was not until 4:30 and b) everyone else in the group was on an earlier train. NOT COOL, since there is literally nothing to do but buy stupid souvenirs in Aguas Caliente.
I ended up meeting the Canadians at their hotel, where they had a nice free lunch buffet, and ate a second lunch. Then I just sat in their hotel lobby and used the Wifi to do some Cusco research.
I paid extra to upgrade to the "Vistadome" train, which was not worth it. The regular train cars have windows on the roof too and the extra money doesn't buy you much. However, in Vistadome we were treated to a small pizza snack, and some kind of local dance/costume which was terrifying:
WHY
It's easy to see why Machu Picchu is one of the wonders of the world and attracts thousands of visitors a year!