14th August - Machu Picchu, Peru
A good hot shower and a comfy hotel bed was a perfect last night, ready for our last early start of the trek: climbing 500m to get up to Machu Picchu before the sun got there!
Up at 4:15am, breakfast at 4:30am (fortunately not mud!) and on the road shortly after 5am. Head torches led the way to the bottom of the mountain we had to climb, but as we hit the stone steps (vicious memories of Nepal haunting me) it gradually got lighter. The climb up was tough, even more so because of the race to beat the sun but when we got to the top it was fantastic.
The city is simply perched on the narrow ridge on top of the mountain, with incredible terracing creeping down the sheer sides. The construction of the buildings is so precise, with no mortar used in most places, just accurate inlocking, enormous, stones. And to think they built it where they did, how they did is quite mindblowing! Abandonned in the 16th century with quite a lot of mystery surrounding the reasons, it was fascinating to wander around.
Our final task of the trek was to go treasure hunting! Erika and Clayton had spent part of their honeymoon walking a similar trek and had left us some surprises carefully hidden amongst the ruins, along with clues, ready for a well earned "liquid refreshment"!
To start with we were thrown by a few red herrings and thought that we would never make effective treasure seeking pirates! We followed the clues and fumbling in nooks and crannies (trying not to draw attention to ourselves for risk of being whistled at by the guards protecting the ruins!) we came across things that we were sure were nothing to do with "liquid refreshment"..
..first a random note to someone's mum and a piece of amythyst, then a couple of bracelets - others were obviously using E&Cs not-so-secret hidey holes and we wondered if these pirates had pilfered our treasure whilst hiding there's!!
But the breakthrough came when we went back to the King's bedroom. We had previously spent ages looking for a particular numbered stone, ignoring it's actual location according to the clue. But amongst a crowd of French tourists I spotted our first piece of treasure nestled in the right location with the wrong number!! Hurrah - we now knew what we were fumbling for (a 1 Soles coin) in the other nooks and crannies and scampered back to the other spots! Before long we had found 3, but there are still 2 out there - maybe someone else got there first, or maybe we are not cut out to be pirates, but if any of you lot plan to visit we'll pass on the last 2 clues!
Up at 4:15am, breakfast at 4:30am (fortunately not mud!) and on the road shortly after 5am. Head torches led the way to the bottom of the mountain we had to climb, but as we hit the stone steps (vicious memories of Nepal haunting me) it gradually got lighter. The climb up was tough, even more so because of the race to beat the sun but when we got to the top it was fantastic.
The city is simply perched on the narrow ridge on top of the mountain, with incredible terracing creeping down the sheer sides. The construction of the buildings is so precise, with no mortar used in most places, just accurate inlocking, enormous, stones. And to think they built it where they did, how they did is quite mindblowing! Abandonned in the 16th century with quite a lot of mystery surrounding the reasons, it was fascinating to wander around.
Our final task of the trek was to go treasure hunting! Erika and Clayton had spent part of their honeymoon walking a similar trek and had left us some surprises carefully hidden amongst the ruins, along with clues, ready for a well earned "liquid refreshment"!
To start with we were thrown by a few red herrings and thought that we would never make effective treasure seeking pirates! We followed the clues and fumbling in nooks and crannies (trying not to draw attention to ourselves for risk of being whistled at by the guards protecting the ruins!) we came across things that we were sure were nothing to do with "liquid refreshment"..
..first a random note to someone's mum and a piece of amythyst, then a couple of bracelets - others were obviously using E&Cs not-so-secret hidey holes and we wondered if these pirates had pilfered our treasure whilst hiding there's!!
But the breakthrough came when we went back to the King's bedroom. We had previously spent ages looking for a particular numbered stone, ignoring it's actual location according to the clue. But amongst a crowd of French tourists I spotted our first piece of treasure nestled in the right location with the wrong number!! Hurrah - we now knew what we were fumbling for (a 1 Soles coin) in the other nooks and crannies and scampered back to the other spots! Before long we had found 3, but there are still 2 out there - maybe someone else got there first, or maybe we are not cut out to be pirates, but if any of you lot plan to visit we'll pass on the last 2 clues!
posted by Polly and James at Wednesday, August 17, 2005
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