Here is the "Postcard"view of the ruins ....after getting that Llama to stop poking his head in front of my camera.
I’ve been told that Machu Picchu is one of those places everyone should see. I was a little worried that the hype may lead to a big disappointment. I’ll save the suspense. It delivers the “Wow”. In short it was one of many Inca cities. It was thought that Machu Picchu was a city for the elite Incas, however that worked. The city consists of an urban area and the agricultural area, noted by the terraces. It was rediscovered in the early 1900 by Hiram Bingham. You can read his book that gives an account of his discovery by downloading his book at the Guggenheim Press web site. Its free. I’ll use pictures to tell more about the site.
This is the main doorway to the city's urban area.
At first I was thinking having a guide was a waste of time. He seemed a little to interested in rewriting to increase the impact of the Incas on world history. When he got down to explaining the Machu Picchu site it got interesting. For example in the picture below, the sun will come through the middle window and line up with the Inca Cross on the right, during the solstice. This indicates its time to plant the harvest…provided its not a cloudy day.
Another example about the Inca Cross. The three edges, or steps of the cross represent the 3 animals important to the Inca believe system. The lowest step is the snake. The middle represents the Puma and the top represents the Condor. The guide likened the soring Condor in the sky to the Christen concept of the promise of heaven. Later as we rode through Peru I realized there are many images of the cross and the three animals, especially the Puma.
Eddy you will recognize this rock.
A view of the agricultual area.
Inca stone work.
Without the guide's help we would have wandered right by this rock. He demonstrated with a compass that the points of the rock line up perfectly with the North, East, South and West.
The surrounding mountains are beautiful.
Below is a shot of the local power station. If you ride closer to Machu Picchu you can walk the remaining distance along the rail tracks to Aguas Caliente. Later we rode part of the road but more on that later.
Our guide pointing out how the rocks form the wings of the Condor before taking us throught the embalming area.
It was a tight squeeze.
You can see the road we took up from Aguas Calientas.
Inca stone work.
Without the guide's help we would have wandered right by this rock. He demonstrated with a compass that the points of the rock line up perfectly with the North, East, South and West.
The surrounding mountains are beautiful.
Below is a shot of the local power station. If you ride closer to Machu Picchu you can walk the remaining distance along the rail tracks to Aguas Caliente. Later we rode part of the road but more on that later.
Our guide pointing out how the rocks form the wings of the Condor before taking us throught the embalming area.
It was a tight squeeze.
You can see the road we took up from Aguas Calientas.
On the train ride back to Ollantaytambo this guy enjoyed waking up sleeping passengers with his toy Llama. It really spooked me to see that face as I came out of a deep sleep. A word about the trains. There are two classes of tickets, Backpacker and Skydome. We took the Backpacker to the park and returned on the Skydome. We found the Backpacker equally comfortable and the best value. The airplane meal and slightly bigger windows hardly justify the extra cost of the Skydome.
On to Bolivia to experience the Death Road and the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.
On to Bolivia to experience the Death Road and the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.
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