Peru Trip Days 6 & 7 - Machu Picchu

Tour of Peru

June 15-28, 2010

I figure that the easiest way to document this trip is to start from their itinerary and add my own comments, observations, and pictures. My stuff is in black.  Theirs is in blue.

Day 6/June 20: Board the first class tourist train for mystical Machu Picchu, the Lost City of the Incas. It was here that the Incas succeeded in combining the wonders of civilization with those of nature. The sheer beauty of what is considered by some the most dramatic place in the world overwhelms you as you are immediately drawn into its "still alive" mysteries. After an extensive guided tour with your spiritually oriented guide, you have free time to explore and meditate here.

Well, that was an optimistic description!  The problem was that parts of the train tracks were still washed out.  As were parts of the road.  So we couldn’t use our great big wonderful buses, but had to get into a convoy of about 5 smaller buses.  Which spent part of the drive driving on the railroad tracks!  (Not next to them:  ON THEM.)  Then we did board a train for the last part of the trip.  But the hotel was beautiful.  Our room was on the train-track side of the hotel.

 

Railway Abutment - Machu Picchu

This is the view from our window.  The train tracks are at the top of this picture.  Trains only went by a few times while we were there, but occasionally you could see a group of 3 or 4 guys running along the tracks!  I think the porters used it as a shortcut back to the station from the hotels where they were delivering bags.  (And we who could barely walk at our normal pace at that altitude were absolutely amazed to see people running!)

The other side of the hotel looked out on a gorgeous river with HUGE rocks scattered in and alongside it.  No photos…

  

Day 7/June 21: Today is the Solstice! This morning visit Machu Picchu early to experience sunrise over the magnificent ruins. Experience a special meditation and ceremony with Gregg. Afterwards, morning and mid-day free time around Machu Picchu.  If you would like to, you may go to the nearby local, rustic hot springs at Aguas Calientes or bathe in the wonderful Vileanota River, fed by pure mountain springs.  Travel back to the Sacred Valley in the late afternoon and overnight.

I did not make it to Machu Picchu at all.  On the way to the hotel I managed to fall, banging both knees, so spent the afternoon of day 6 and all of day 7 in the hotel resting.  But, I didn’t miss the sunrise because it was cloudy and the sun basically did not rise for anyone.  So no one saw the light coming through the ruins which was the main drawing point of the trip for a lot of people.  Late in the day we took the train (and jouncing bus) back to the monastery for the night.

Peru Trip Day 5 was fun, but taxing...

Tour of Peru

June 15-28, 2010

I figure that the easiest way to document this trip is to start from their itinerary and add my own comments, observations, and pictures. My stuff is in black.  Theirs is in blue.


Day 5/June 19:  Meeting and seminar time with Gregg.  Later visit and share in a prayer ceremony at the ancient ruins of Pisac, a superb Incan center high on the mountainside.  Pisac covers an entire mountain and is located in a spectacular surrealistic mountain setting with a variegated green carpet of intact Incan terraces flowing up to the peaks.  The temples here blend perfectly with their environment.  The most sacred temple contains the famous "Intihuatana" stone, or "Hitching Post of the Sun."  This is speculated to have been a solar clock and astronomical and astrological calendar as well as a prayer site.  Visit and be up close to see first-hand, alpacas, vicunas and llamas at a local textile factory.


Before going to Pisac, we went to the textile “factory.”  Basically a petting zoo and weaving center where they gave us barley to feed the critters.  I got some yarn and a lovely, delicate, hand-knit scarf made from baby alpaca yarn.

Alpaca (or llama...) Munching Barley.

There were two ways to get to Pisac – the high road and the low road.  After Gregg described the high road as being up this mountain and then down a bit, with sections that are very narrow and have cliffs dropping off below and a tunnel that looks more like a cave as you enter because you can’t see the light at the other end, he also told us that there was a “low road” that was basically level but ended with a flight of about 300 steps up to the plateau of Pisac.


Gregg said that people could choose to go via high or low, but that everyone would be coming back by the low road because it would be dusk by then as he was planning a sunset ceremony at Pisac.  I decided that the low road was the way to go, but on the way there, Gregg informed us that portions of the low road had been washed out in the rains that made Machu Picchu unreachable for a couple of months earlier in the year.  They had not been restored yet, so everyone was going to have to both go and come back by the high road! 


I went most of the way, but eventually got to a flight of stairs going down and decided that I definitely did not want to have to climb back up them.  So sat by the side of the trail on my own while the rest of the group went on.  I had a nice peaceful time watching the shadow of the mountain at my back creep up the slope across the valley and then returned to the bus when the others came back.  (I will probably get to see photos of Pisac when Jerry sends his CD out!)