Machu Picchu

I've seen the photos and heard the tales. Yet I suppose this is one of those occasions, where you have to see it to believe it. 

If it were just the ruins, they would be interesting and impressive enough. Yet the only words to describe the setting of Machu Picchu are: 

_stunning_

_unbelievable_

_unique_

_whoop-de-whoop-whoop!_

_ok, and maybe some others that I can't think of just now_

Truly the Incas must have had a highly developed sense of aesthetics and love of nature. How else could one explain that their holy places always seem to be in the most stunning environments possible.

As I left for Machu Picchu the dawn began to break. The early morning was misty, but would Machu Picchu let that spoil a good first impression? Clearly not!

The actual archeological site is on a kind of ridge between two mountains, Machu Picchu (old mountain) mountain (over 3000m) and the smaller, yet more pictoresque, ruin-topped Wayna Picchu mountain. To get the best views of the area, it's absolutely worth climbing one of these. And if you want to have the mountain pretty much to yourself, it's worth starting to climb early, since very few people start off for the top first thing.

Using the logic that is a pretty house and a less impressive house are opposite one another, the less pretty house will have better views from the window, I climbed Machu Picchu peak. Good choice - also since Wayna Picchu peak, as the better known and slightly easier climb, is usually covered with tourists, whereas I only met a handfull of people on my long climb up. The climb is, yet again, an old Inca trail and those lads really liked stairs... and there were plenty of them as the mountain top is 3082m - over 600 meters higher than the ruins.

On the way I had time to admire the flora and fauna while I was catching my breath.

 

 

Having sweated gallons and nearly lost faith a few times I got to the top. It was worth it, since this is one of those mountains, where the best views really are from the top. I seated myself on a rock, legs dangling over nothing much and just feated my eyes. My mouth may have also been hanging open, since the view was truly gobsmacking. There were only 8 of us on top of the hour and a half I spent just being awed by the view.  

I ceremoniously ate the Cafe de Paris apple pie I had bought along for the occasion. A weak substitute for the Pimm's no 1 my friend Pekka and I corked on top of the mayan ruins of Tikal in Guatemala 15 years earlier. 

There are bits and bobs of information I could write about Machu Picchu, but in this instance I think photos may be better than words. 

However, I do want to drop the hint that if Machu Picchu is on your list of top ten things to do before the end credits, you should try to come this year. The daily amount of visitors is 3000-4000 people on average (slightly lower in this, the rainy season) - and the ancient ruins are starting to suffer simply from the trampling of so many feet. So as of the beginning of 2016, the administration is planning to restrict the time you are allowed to be in the site to three hours. I spent 8,5 hours in total in Machu Picchu and wouldn't have given away a single one of them. Three hours just isn't enough.