Machu Picchu

Although we missed joining Jim Carrey by just a day, my 5 friends and I who adventured to Machu Picchu this weekend came back feeling we'd had an incredible experience and a lot of good stories to share. On the 3 hour train ride up, 2 friends and I sat next to a middle-aged man who seemed to have traveled to nearly every country in the world. After discussing North Korea and where we would go on a Watson Fellowship (a friend of mine is planning to apply after graduation), we all agreed that this trip would be one we'd never forget. As the train pulled into the station at Aguas Calientes, I knew that our conclusion was true- already we were surrounded by lush Peruvian jungle, the green mountains towering over us majestically among the clouds. My friends and I marveled at the beauty as we made our way to the hostel, consenting that we felt like ants walking through the expansive scenery surrounding us.

After buying our tickets to get into Machu Picchu the following day, we wandered around the tourist town where we found restaurants fighting over us for business. A woman with a menu would offer us 20 soles for a "menú" (a 3-course meal consisting of a soup or salad, an entree, and a dessert) when a woman from the restaurant next-door would return by offering us a 20 soles menú plus a free drink! The restaurants carried on like this until we became too overwhelmed and just chose one (where we enjoyed 20 soles menús with our free Pisco Sours, chips, and guacamole). Throughout the whole trip I couldnt help but feel so independent and, well, old. Here I was in a foreign country with my friends, planning a trip to one of the worlds most famous sites by ourselves; we booked our train tickets, found the hostel, budgeted meals, figured out transportation to and from train stations as well as the ruins themselves...all on our own. It was something I had seen before only in movies, this exploring the world with a handful of other college students. Never before was it something I had actually found myself doing, and being able to travel that way now was both liberating and exciting.

We woke up at 4am to walk up the mountain to Machu Picchu in the hopes that we would beat the first bus up (and save money) and make it early to climb Wayna Picchu, Machus sister peak that allows entry to no more than 400 people per day. However, our plans were doomed from the start. The first set-back was that the restaurant connected the hostel, which had offered to open early for us that morning, was not ready at 4 as we had discussed. After shoveling our Continental and American (Continental plus eggs) breakfasts down our throats, we set off on our journey a good 15 minutes later that we had planned. Walking in total darkness lit only by 2 small flashlights, we began to follow the directions we had received from a guard the day before, following the sound of the river to keep ourselves on the right track. Once we found the trail, however, our travels were not made much easier. We ended up hiking an hour and a half up 2300 feet- and I mean it when I say up. The hike was more or less like doing large lunges up endless flights of stairs that had been cut right into the side of the mountain. And after about a half hour of this, we actually lost the stairs and had to hike for a while following the looping switchbacks, jumping off the road, disheartened, when the first tourist-packed buses passed us.

As we tiredly continued to make our way up the mountain, Lena stopped and realized her backpack was open; to her dismay and ours, her jacket and the second cell phone she had bought since coming to Peru were missing. We spent about 10 minutes waiting as she re-traced our steps in search of her things, but pressed onwards when we realized they had likely fallen out at the beginning of our trek. But the excitement didnt stop there. About halfway up the mountain, my friend Gabrielle had her first real wheezing asthma attack in years. As the rest of us stood watching petrified, Natalie (a basketball player at Vassar and an asthmatic herself) expertly held Gabrielle from behind, pulled her arms back to stand her up straight, and led her through slow, deep breaths in order to calm her screaming lungs. As we forged ahead, panting and sweating in the rain, I found myself struggling to breathe through my congested nose at such high altitude, and had to stop periodically to rest so that I wouldnt faint. But when the sun slowly rose to reveal the gorgeous mountains and clouds all around us, I started to regain a bit of hope that I would make it to the top. As I struggled to carry all the layers I had worn out into the cold that morning, pressing ahead with no end in sight, I found that I had started to play the final music from the Lion King in my head (you know, the sort of rebirth theme after the storm?), motivating me to keep moving onward through the rain.

When we finally arrived at the top around 6:45 am, everyone was exhausted and absolutely delirious. To everyones surprise, Lena (who had been grumbling "I hate Machu Picchu!" the entire way up) cried instantly upon seeing the ruins from above, overcome with emotion at seeing such splendor. My friend Meredith and I were to break into fits of giggles for the next hour, unable to control ourselves and our emotions after such physical exhaustion. The ruins themselves were absolutely amazing, but really un-capturable on camera or with words. I could not believe how expansive the site was, and was astounded that it really had remained untouched by the Spanish. For those of you who dont know, Machu Picchu was undiscovered by the conquistadors, and though its presence was known by the local population, it was kept a secret from the outside world until Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham discovered it 100 years ago. (Side note: Bingham and the "discovery" of Machu Picchu was supposedly the inspiration for my favorite adventuring anthropologist, Indiana Jones).

The "lost city of the Incas" was picture-perfect among the clouds and towering mountains of Peru, complete with llamas roaming the green terraces below. The architecture was even more impressive than other sites we had visited, as the Incas had literally built the city into the mountain, using the mountain itself as the foundations of buildings or the central altars of the temples. However, I would be lying if I portrayed the experience itself as wholly perfect. We took a 2 hour tour with a woman named Olga who refused to speak to us in Spanish (which would have been much more comprehensible than the English tour she gave) and by the end of the tour we were all wet, freezing and pretty miserable in general from the days excursions.

Under normal circumstances, we would have left the ruins to change our clothes and warm up back in Aguas Calientes before catching the train back to Cusco. But unfortunately, one of the boys in my group had bought his train tickets before coming to Peru and was not coming in until 1pm to see the ruins. Since he had no one else to go with, we had told him weeks ago that we would wait for him, and didnt realize until after finishing our tour that we had several hours to kill before his arrival. We ventured to a small restaurant nearby, recommended by Olga as somewhere the Machu Picchu workers ate (enticingly advertised as having sandwiches cheaper than the ones offered for 20 soles at the site of the ruins), and found to our delight that we were the only tourists who had discovered the damp building that day. We spent over 2 hours at the restaurant trying to warm up and dry off (to no avail), periodically taking turns to order fried egg sandwiches (served with a delicious salsa of onions and hot peppers) and loose leaf coca tea, one at a time. By the time we got back to Aguas Calientes to eat lunch and catch the train, we were all wiped out and looking forward to getting back into bed in Cusco. The weekend had been packed with fun, adventure, wonder, and lots of rain, but by the time it was over we were excited to be heading back to what we have come to know as "home."