Solay woke us punctually at 04:00, we were to set off at 05:30 to try to reach Intipunku, the Sun Gate, by sunrise. Given that the rain had been ceaseless all night, I was sceptical that we would be seeing any sun that morning, but we were all too sleepy to think much or do anything other than march wordlessly after Solay. She set a cracking pace, and after three days of walking we were all quite beat, even though we knew we only had two and a half hours of walking in front of us. We raced up the hills and tried not to tumble down the steps, and, sure enough, when we reached Intipunku our reaction, far from awed, was more along the lines of “Well, has the sun risen or not?”. We could barely see ten metres in front of our faces thanks to the fog.
More than a little perturbed that we had hauled ourselves out of our sleeping bags at dead o’clock in the morning to see an invisible sunrise, but spurred by the proximity of our final destination, we continued in a more relaxed fashion towards Machupicchu. The Apus had apparently gotten over their bad mood with us when, some hours later, the fog magically lifted and we could look down the mountain from the Trail and take our first (bird’s eye) look at our Holy Grail. From this vantage point we could see the ancient metropolis in its entirety, set as it is in and against the awesomely stunning mountain backdrop. In fact, were I to be completely honest, I would have to say that the mountains were even more breathtaking than Machupicchu itself, but I’d been looking at mountains for four days and had gone through this rigamarole specifically to see Machupicchu, so I tried to focus on the archaeology and not the geology. I can say this for the Incas; they certainly know how to pick a site for a temple. The other good thing about this particular view of Machupicchu was that it was still early, about 07:00, so it was still relatively tourist-free, and therefore gave the impression of being deserted and in the middle of nowhere, which is an appropriate impression for an archaeological site to give.
We made our way down in the brilliant sunshine, checked our bags at the door (what a relief to get that elephant off my back) and began our tour. While the tour guide was very informative (to the point where we would have welcomed a little more brevity) she was a native Spanish speaker delivering a tour in English. While I applaud her effort it was clear she had given the same tour hundreds of times, and she spoke in a monotone reminiscent of a recorded message. The monotonous droning, made slightly more unintelligible than usual due to the accent, coupled with the heat, strong bright sunshine and our aching and exhausted bodies, produced a torpor that was becoming difficult to fight off. We struggled valiantly with our drooping eyelids, took pictures, learned about Inca structural engineering like the good, obedient little tourists we were. The second the tour ended we all collapsed on the benches in the sunshine to rest our feet and brains.
Unbelievably by this point it was only about 10:00 or 11:00, but given we had woken some six or seven hours earlier and trudged through kilometres of soggy, rocky terrain, we felt as though it should have been late afternoon at the very earliest. Solay produced another “surprise” – this time a Chilean wine to toast having finally reached our destination. We enjoyed the wine, after of course sacrificing the first few drops to the Pachamama, and I could almost feel it rushing to my aching joints, muscles and blisters to anaesthetise them. From there we were free to roam Machupicchu at our leisure, and I took the opportunity to try and find a relatively isolated spot where I could reflect on the past four days and what I’d learned about the life of the Incas. This had become problematic as in the short hours we were listening to the droning of the tour guide, a river of humanity had flowed into the complex, pouring into every corner, rendering the search for a spot for quiet reflection futile. I found a place where at least I couldn’t see anyone else and tried to mentally block out the multi-lingual roar around me.
I sat there until it was time to head to Aguas Calientes for lunch. Glenn and Bridey had their hearts set on eating guinea-pig, a Peruvian delicacy, that day. Undeterred by the hefty 40 sole price tag, they asked for it, but the restaurant was out of guinea-pig that day. It was something I also wanted to try, but thanks to the VISA fiasco 40 soles was about all I had to my name at that point, so I went for Spanish omelette. We killed time until the train and bus back to Cusco. Here we said goodbye to Solay (sniff sniff) as she was on a later train home (simply as a result of economics, she explained, as our tickets had cost USD$35 and hers cost USD$6). We slept all the way back to Cusco, and swapped emails, promised to meet up later that night (yeah, right!) and I made my way back to the hotel, a hot shower, and bed.
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