The trip began when we caught a plane from Santiago to Arica, just four days after Zack flew home from a Fulbright conference in Buenos Aires. Arica is the northern most major city in Chile, roughly fifteen minutes from the Peruvian border, and as it was a domestic flight rather than an international one it suited our budget slightly better. After a brief stay with a fellow-Fulbrighter in Arica we began a pseudo-epic overland journey to Cusco, the heart of the ancient Incan civilization. This trip included a 1.5 hr taxi ride to the nearest town in Peru (Tacna), a 6 hour bus ride into the second largest city in Peru (Arequipa), from where we began the last 8 hour leg of the trip, in poorly chosen seats directly on top of the bus’ heating system.
But at 7am we arrived in Cusco which would be our hub for the next ten or eleven days. Cusco is an awesome little city, and in the interest of length I will leave details of our time in Cusco for another blog post. But we had a great time in the area, visiting some of the lesser-known Incan ruins, enjoying the local towns and a festival, and acclimatizing to the elevation (3300+m, or over 11,000ft).
Of course virtually no one travels to Cusco without taking the trip to Machu Picchu, and we are no exception. There is no (easy) road to Aguas Calientes, the town from which one goes up to the famous ruins, so we bought train tickets and enjoyed a 1.5 hour trip through the river valley. After arriving in Aguas Calientes in the afternoon we followed the river downstream to find some birds, as we do. We saw several birds that knocked our socks off – for any birders reading this, my favorites were the Torrent Duck, Andean Cock of the Rock, and the Highland MotMot. Stunning.
The following morning we began waiting in lines…a wise blogger had mentioned that a visit to Machu Picchu largely consists of waiting in line. We were in line for the bus by 5:05am, in line at the entrance by 6:15am, and after a morning seeing the famous ruins, at 10:15am were again in line to climb Huayna Picchu. But in between the lines it was fantastic to wander among the ancient rock walls. If you’ve been there you understand; if you haven’t, I don’t want to spoil it for you. But I will note it was very interesting to visit such a famous place, and see the views that I’ve seen SO often in pictures. The majority of the experience was fantastic, but there were times when it seemed almost unremarkable. Or perhaps it was just strange that I was actually in those photos that had never seemed entirely real in national geographic or on a postcard.
One of the best parts of our visit was a long walk along an Incan trail on the backside of Huayna Picchu (the pointy peak in the background of all those famous photos of Machu Picchu). We didn’t run into another person the entire time, and got to visit a small ruin called the ‘Gran Caverna’, or ‘Temple of the Moon’, which some archeologists think may have been an important crypt. As the name implies, it was a large cave in which the Incans had built a few small but exquisite temples/walls. The complete solitude and tranquility made the site all the more impressive.
I’ve skimmed over so many rich details in an effort to be brief, but this posting has still become too long! We’ll keep working on future posts to share the rest of our trip, but here is a quick overview of the itinerary: after our trip to Machu Picchu, Zack and I embarked on a four day trek to another set of Incan ruins called Choquequirao (awesome trip!), then bused to Lago Titikaka before passing through ‘the white city’ of Arequipa en route back to Arica. From Arica we took a short birding trip into the high-andean national park for our anniversary, then flew back to Santiago and our real lives.
Whew. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more!
Anna
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