Machu Picchu

On Friday, we woke up early again to catch a bus up to Machu Picchu.  We met our guide, went in, and this was our first view of the city.

I was told by a very well-traveled priest that there are lots of places in the world that don't live up to the hype.  He said Machu Picchu is not one of those places--it will blow your mind.  You hit the nail on the head, Fr. Scully.  This place is special.

The whole group reunited in front of Machu Picchu.  Even though the city was discovered in 1911, it was just in the last 10 years they decided its primary function was a school for teaching all the different Inca knowledge from architecture to astronomy to agriculture.

The big peak on the right is called Waynapicchu.  More on that in a minute.  If you turn the picture counter-clockwise 90 degrees, can you see a face formed by the mountains?

My favorite features by far are those that use the natural rock of the mountain.  The Sun Room is a great example.  On the solstice, the sun shines directly through that window.  I also love the tight interlocking walls they build.  We learned in Tiwanaku how they used metal clamps to hold the rocks together--one of the techniques they stole from the Tiwanakus after their conquest.

Our tour guide Miguel with more cool structures, this time inside a house.  The cut-outs are shelves, probably for candles.

Another awesome use of natural rock.  The big pieces of granite sticking out of the ground are wings of a condor, with the head and beak at the bottom of the picture.  This room was used to collect and record all astronomical data which is fitting because the condor represents all things in the sky.

Halfway through the tour we were treated to a beautiful sunrise.  You could watch the colors of Machu Picchu itself change as the sun rose.

Those Inca people were clever.  This is a shallow bowl carved into a piece of granite.  When filled with water, it makes a great mirror.  See me upside-down at the top of the picture?  They used this to point out details in the constellations.

This isn't a great picture, but the rock on the right looks kind of like a head.  There is an obvious nose and eyes along with large earrings covering the side of the face.  This is the sacrificial temple located at one of the higher points.

This oddly carved rock is a compass.  The top of the diamond points directly north.  And do you see what shape the shadow makes?  It's a llama, one of the most central animals to Inca culture.  Once a year the shadow resembles a snake as well.  Genius.

400 people a day are allowed to enter and climb Waynapicchu, the large dome-shaped mountain in the background of every famous Machu Picchu picture.  It was about 45 minutes of climbing straight up.  The views were more than worth it.

There were some tight squeezes on the way up.

A birds eye view of Machu Picchu from the top of Waynapicchu.  Viewed directly from above the whole complex looks like a condor with its wings spread.  It amazes me that the Incas had the technology to pull off such intricate city planning.  Cusco is in the shape of a puma.

I would love to go back to Peru to see the mysterious Nazca lines, another amazing feat of planning that resulted in giant animals only visible from high in the sky.  How did they know what they were making?  And why make these giant drawings in the first place?

Pablo Neruda wrote a poem called the Ode to Machu Picchu.  Fr. Scully suggested we read it from the top of Waynapicchu.  As you wish!  We all read it while looking at the city.  It was very moving.

Waynapicchu itself has some impressive Inca architecture at the top.  The terraces are built into the very steep sides.  Their function is to create farmable land and prevent erosion.

The Incas were very good at many things, but we decided that something they could have worked on was building steps.  The descent from Waynapicchu had to be done sideways.

The granite rock in the foreground of this picture is carved to resemble the mountains in the background.  Similar to the mirrors used for looking at the stars, having a small scale model of the mountains made their study easier.  Brilliant.

Exit Signs at Machu Picchu: almost as prevalent as the human being.  I tried to post pictures here that are as people-less as possible, but they were everywhere.  Geologists are a little worried about the amount of daily traffic.  The city is sliding at 1 cm a month and a giant slide is a possibility.

The exit was tough to find.  They have lots of things roped off so there's only one way out and a mistake (which we made) could require walking back over several staircases to get out.

I imagine someday all of Machu Picchu will crumble like this, but it's been beautifully maintained.  The Spanish missed it in their conquest and Inca descendants kept it a secret until Harem Bingham stumbled across it in 1911.  He was looking for a different site but a local boy showed him Machu Picchu for a fee that wasn't much for Bingham and was several months pay for the boy.  There is still controversy between Yale (Bingham's university) and Peru because several artifacts were taken to be studied for "18 months" in 1911 and still have not been returned.  Oops.

After our excellent morning at Machu Picchu our trip home began with a train ride out of Aguas Calientes.  Our company had waited too long to book the correct train so we had to go with plan B.  We were supposed to meet a bus at the train station but it was 3 hours late.  This caused Ryan, Laura and me to miss our bus back to La Paz which caused us to miss our flight back to Santiago.  Ugh.  Thankfully Jon and Barry just had to make it back to Cusco sometime that night and Sarah was on a different train so they all made it back no problem.

So, the our Saturday consisted of a bus to Puno then a collectivo (a van like the one pictured) to the Bolivian border crossing (which we almost missed since they close at 7:30 p.m.) then a collectivo to La Paz.  All the while I was wrestling to find an internet connection to reschedule our flight.

Luckily Sky was wonderful to us and managed to get us out on a LAN flight on Sunday evening that got us back in time to catch some sleep and get to work on Monday morning.  We were able to go to mass in a beautiful cathedral in La Paz and see the markets one more time before heading to the airport.  We were pretty stressed those couple days but only had a few out-of-pocket expenses and were only a day late.  It definitely could have been worse.

And, one more time, the Edina grads together above Machu Picchu.  It was so great to see Jon and Barry, we had a great time.  Thanks so much for coming, guys!  I look forward to some great skiing and worldly adventures in the future.

After working a couple days back at school, a friend from Notre Dame came to visit for a week.  We took a trip out to the coast, she came to school for a day, and we spent some time with my host family.  To read about our time together and everything else that's been happening the last few weeks, come back soon!