Macchu Picchu

The Peru government began regulating entry to MP about 6 years ago, so now 1). you must have a guide, 2). your entry is timed so that the number of people present at any one time is limited and 3). your time inside is limited to 2 hrs, theoretically, and the guide is responsible for keeping track, and 4). you must keep to the route assigned to you on your ticket. We had 2 tickets, one for route 1 and one for route 3 but both allowed entry at 10AM. The guides are somewhat lax about enforcing the two hour limit.

The site is spectacular, both the views and the history.

According to our guide, archeologists say construction started in late 1400’s and the site was abandoned by the Inca in early 1500’s. It was actually occupied for only about 30 years with never more than 700 people living there. All of that is hard to believe. The amount of work to create this would have been enormous. Consider that these stones were created by hammer and chisels, before the iron age, so hammers crafted out of stone, chisels made of copper?, or stone. And the terraces you see in these pictures are just part of what they created. More terraces are covered by the jungle at the bottom of the hill, they haven’t been exposed by clearing away the vegetation. The terraces were to stabilize the hillside and to provide agricultural space.All the buildings would have had thatched roofs.

Most stones are roughly fitted together and the spaces between filled with mortar made from clay, sand and ashes but the upper classes, kings and priests, lived in extremely well fitted, smooth stone structures like this one. Notice the pair of holes chiseled into the stones on each side and a loop sticking out above the door. These are where ropes were used to hold a door in place. This was the entrance to one of the temples.

These channels were carved/chiseled into the

stone in order to channel running water through out the village.

This is Peggy with our guide Hugo. We stayed from 10AM to 1 PM, all on route 3 which crisscrosses with route 2. We could have done route 1, we had a ticket, but we were tired and had seen 90%.

We watched hummingbirds at a feeder while we had a light lunch in the restaurant of the only hotel next to MP, then the bus took us back down the mountain to Agua Caliente. When there we discovered Tripmaster had arranged for a lunch for us, after that we boarded the train back to Ollyantaytambo where a driver met us and drove us to Cuzco.

We spent that night, our last at Saska Boutique hotel. Walked around the central district and ate supper at Ofrendo. Our long day and a half of flying, Sunday 3/8, started the next morning,. We flew into Louisville and arrived home 3/9 at 1PM.

Notes on Peru: if you go, don’t even think about driving in Lima, use Uber or taxi. Their driving is insane. Also don’t expect people to know English. I think none of our Uber drivers did. Restaurants frequented by tourists will have some English speakers but most we ate at had little to none. Also, Peruvians in general couldn’t understand my broken, accented Spanish nor could they slow down their speech to accomodate me by using simpler words. Finally, Peru’s food reputation really is deserved. We didn’t have a bad meal, and the dishes we had at Ayahuasca Grill in Agua Caliente, for around $13 each, was one of the best meals I have ever had.