Day 4: Machu Picchu

Yes, we really took this one.  And with an iPad no less!

And so with a 4:30am wake up call, we're off to Machu Picchu, the "hidden city" perched atop a ridge 8,000 feet up in the Peruvian Andes, 60 miles down the mountain from Cuzco. The area is reachable only by a 4 day long hike (obviously not for Eric although Christian could probably manage it -- he doesn't stink if he doesn't bathe for 4 days) or by train. We opted for the train. Our train left Poroy (30 minutes from our hotel) at 6:30 AM and was due into Aguas Calientes around 10 AM.

Explanation of the ways to get to Machu Picchu

Our Vistadome Carriage.. creeping down the mountain..

The view from the train

Ice capped Andes from the train

Through the fog-covered Peruvian Andes we slowly descended, at about 20 miles an hour, watching the ancient little villages go by while beautiful Andean pan flute music played gently overhead. The whole experience was a little "Riverdance-like" but "eh! Is Peru!" I will tell you one thing though.. Aeroméxico could take some service lessons from PeruRail. We may be on the "discount train" (the Hiram Bingham Orient Express train runs this same route for 10x the price) but they still put out a cute meal on beautiful Alpaca table clothes.  It was a fine way to travel 3 1/2 hours down the canyon.  

On arrival in Aguas Calientes, which is the definition of a 1 horse (and no road) town, we wandered through dozens of stalls selling all sorts of Peruvian products.. mostly those made of alpaca "wool".

Aguas Calientes -- a no horse town

but they do have two rail lines.. but no roads.

AC: a cute little village in the mountains

From Aguas Callientes we had to board a bus which zipped up 20 minutes of crazy switchbacks (at breakneck speeds) to reach the entrance to Machu Picchu.  Look carefully at the picture below.  The white lines on the mountainside are the one-lane roads that the buses use for two way traffic.  See the little itty bitty dots?  Those are 30 person buses.  Yee-ha!

We entered the gates...

Went down the entrance stairs...

Peeked through a few windows..

Then finally saw what we had come for!

A close up of the "upper town" where the rich people lived..

Look, ma!  I made it!

No, this isn't a green screen Glamor Shot, although the
fill flash kinda makes it look like one!

But then an emergency struck!  An alarm sounded, women were screaming, grown men began to cry and run away...  although rarely seen, it appears that a dreaded ALPACA ATTACK was underway.  About every 200 years an alpaca goes rogue and returns to the natural diet of alpacas in Incan times.. SMALL CHILDREN!  This little guy didn't have a chance!!!

Always an enemy of tragedy and friend to children and animals, Christian was able to swoop in and save the day.  He used the skills he learned in alpaca-whispering classes during his time in the seminary and was able to perform a mind-meld on the savage beast....

To celebrate, Christian said a little prayer and did his "Christ, Redeemer" pose, nearly doing a swan dive into Machu Picchu at the same time...

After all of that hard work, Christian had to stop and check his email and see what was going on with the Olympics...  (don't laugh, they have 5 bars of cell service up there!  no WiFi though.  Incans are SOOO last millennium)

We couldn't find
"The Temple with Three Windows"
so we made our own.

Christian got tired.. all the alpacas were busy, so Eric did his
best impression

So we headed for the exit.
(How considerate of the Incans
to leave signposts!)

But we couldn't help stopping to have a little illegal picnic
in our own private house before we started the 6 hour trek home...

And that's the end of the post for today.  Worry not, though.. if you're hungry for more photos you'll be pleased to know that we took over 400 pictures just today.  Our plan is to post all of the best pix from each continent to Facebook each time we change continents... so sometime around Sunday or Monday you should be able to see ALL of our South American photos...

Back again tomorrow!!