Day 189: Ya Tengo

Aguas Calientes – Machu Picchu – Huaynapicchu – Aguas Calientes – Ollantaytambo – Cusco, Peru

Action-packed day! Woke up at 4:30 in the morning to get ready for the Machu Picchu hike. There’s an easy way to get from Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu: by taking a half-hour zig-zag bus ride that costs $9. I took the hard way: walking the staircases that cut straight through it. Don’t ask me why.

5:30 in the morning, I started walking up this blood hill under the rain.

It was 7:30 when I got to the entrance of Machu Picchu. My guide was supposed to come by 7:45 but he’s nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t until almost 8:30 that we actually went inside the area. By then, it was full of tourists. But Machu Picchu is huge, so everybody still had spaces.

Some famous sites do not really live up to their fame. Machu Picchu wasn’t the case. It blew my mind. The sheer size of it and to imagine that people used to live here. It must had been really beautiful back then.

We finished our Machu Picchu tour close to 11:30. Then it’s time for me to trek Huaynapicchu. I had not much idea about Huaynapicchu. All I knew was that only 400 people were allowed to trek it in a day, rendering it necessary to book days ahead for the entrance ticket. I did that and now it’s time to chart the mountain. I first thought it was the smaller mountain in the background of Machu Picchu but to my despair, it’s the bigger one. It’s too late to back out then. The sign in front of the entrance discouraged me even more: “This climb is for the fit and healthy only.” I suppose I was healthy in general but fit I wasn’t too sure. Besides, Machu Picchu is way high above sea level.

I attempted the climb anyway. The path got steeper and steeper. At some points, it’s almost ridiculous. But to my surprise! I made it all the way!

And after all this, I was only half way done. There’s still the climb down Huaynapicchu, the trek across Machu Picchu, the climb down to Aguas Calientes and then more walk to the town center…. By the time I was back at the hostel, I couldn’t feel my feet. It was a total of 10 hours non-stop trekking.

By 7pm, I boarded the Peru Rail back to Ollantaytambo and then caught a van back to Cusco. I was out the whole way back.

So all of the hard work paid off with this stamp I got on my passport