At last an undate to this blog! Unfortunitly a combination of having my laptop charging cable stolen and very poor internet connectivity in Peru & Bolivia, I have been unable to update this blog regularly. I have however kept writing the blogs and over the next couple of days I will post to this site.
Location: Agnus Clientes, Peru.
Im awoken by a thunderous thump on the floor in the hostel dorm room, its 3am and the first of the early morning risers for Macchu Picchu that day are beginning to wake up although one seams to have nose dived to the floor from the top bunk rather than descend the ladder. Dominique, myself and Wei our new American/Aisan friend have set our alarms for 3.30am as we have decided to hike to the base of Macchu Picchu rather than take the bus which involves queuing by the bus stop at an unnatural 3.45 am in the morning!
Realising there is no more sleep to be had I rise myself and head to breakfast which in this hostal as with every other hostel near Macchu Picchu begins at 3am! Its very aparant that climbing Macchu Picchu is an early mornoing activity, the quest to see the sunrise over its magistic ruins and be one of the lucky 400 who get to climb Wayna Picchu that day are all to appealling and thus its the early risers who acheive the greatest experience from their visit.
Breakfast over with and backpack filled - complete with as many bananas I could steal from breakfast - we stepted out into the pitch black Agnus Clientes street and began our hike towards the entrance of this Inca trail wonder. As we strol our way through the cobbelled streets we pass the bus stop which has already a very long meandering que of people waiting for the first bus to depart. After approx 2kms of walking we arrive at the antrence to the Macchu Picchu national park - a bridge, that crosses a very fast flowing river. Here we meet up with the rest of the people who have decided to hike the 3kms of steep forest tail to Machu Picchu itself. They are mostly people who are on the final day of their Inca Trail experience and many look tired after the pervious 3 days hiking. The bridge opens at 5am and we begin the accent upwards. 5am in South America is uaually not pitch black but the height of the mountains surrounding us means that any potential moonlight is blocked off. Many prepared individuals had wise packed head torches, I however had to be content with the my ipnone and the Hectors breakfast radio show "keep her lit" app! It did the job just fine for me and many other backpackers along the treck!
An hours brisk climbing later and we arrived at the top to be greated by the the swarm of people waiting for the entrence whom had taken the busses to the top! Thankfully we were still among the first 200 to reach the entrence and recieved our stamps to climb Waynu Picchu at 7am. The gates opened at 6am and our Macchu Picchu experience had begun.
The ruins of Machu Picchu, rediscovered in 1911 by Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, are one of the most beautiful and enigmatic ancient sites in the world. While the Inca people certainly used the Andean mountain top (9060 feet elevation), erecting many hundreds of stone structures from the early 1400's, legends and myths indicate that Machu Picchu (meaning 'Old Peak' in the Quechua language) was revered as a sacred place from a far earlier time. Whatever its origins, the Inca turned the site into a small (5 square miles) but extraordinary city. Invisible from below and completely self-contained, surrounded by agricultural terraces sufficient to feed the population, and watered by natural springs, Machu Picchu seems to have been utilized by the Inca as a secret ceremonial city.
Two thousand feet above the rumbling Urubamba river, the cloud shrouded ruins have palaces, baths, temples, storage rooms and some 150 houses, all in a remarkable state of preservation. These structures, carved from the gray granite of the mountain top are wonders of both architectural and aesthetic genius. Many of the building blocks weigh 50 tons or more yet are so precisely sculpted and fitted together with such exactitude that the mortarless joints will not permit the insertion of even a thin knife blade. Little is known of the social or religious use of the site during Inca times. The skeletal remains of ten females to one male had led to the casual assumption that the site may have been a sanctuary for the training of priestesses and /or brides for the Inca nobility. However, subsequent osteological examination of the bones revealed an equal number of male bones, thereby indicating that Machu Picchu was not exclusively a temple or dwelling place of women.
One of Machu Picchu's primary functions was that of astronomical observatory. The Intihuatana stone (meaning 'Hitching Post of the Sun') has been shown to be a precise indicator of the date of the two equinoxes and other significant celestial periods. The Intihuatana (also called the Saywa or Sukhanka stone) is designed to hitch the sun at the two equinoxes, not at the solstice (as is stated in some tourist literature and new-age books). At midday on March 21st and September 21st, the sun stands almost directly above the pillar, creating no shadow at all. At this precise moment the sun "sits with all his might upon the pillar" and is for a moment "tied" to the rock. At these periods, the Incas held ceremonies at the stone in which they "tied the sun" to halt its northward movement in the sky. There is also an Intihuatana alignment with the December solstice (the summer solstice of the southern hemisphere), when at sunset the sun sinks behind Pumasillo (the Puma's claw), the most sacred mountain of the western Vilcabamba range, but the shrine itself is primarily equinoctial.
Shamanic legends tell that when a sensitive person touches their forehead to the Intihuatana stone it opens their vision to jthe spirit world, but I guess I'm not that sensitive as it didn't work for me! Intihuatana stones were the supremely sacred objects of the Inca people and were systematically searched for and destroyed by the Spaniards. When the Intihuatana stone was broken at an Inca shrine, the Inca believed that the deities of the place died or departed. The Spaniards never found Machu Picchu, even though they suspected its existence, thus the Intihuatana stone and its resident spirits remain in their original position. The mountain top sanctuary fell into disuse and was abandoned some forty years after the Spanish took Cuzco in 1533. Supply lines linking the many Inca social centers were disrupted and the great empire came to an end.
Up until July 24th 1911 this site had been unknown and unseen by the outside world and I can only imagine the surprise and awe experienced by its discoverer Hiram Bingham when he litterely stummbled across it! Since then it has become one of the seven historical wonders of the world visited by thousands annually inc me. However I certainly wasent the only Irish person to visit that day for as I was waiting in the que to climb Wayna Picchu two undeniably familiar accents wafted through the air beside me.... I turned to be greated by two Wexford lads complete with two hurls and a sliotar which they sneaked in past the sucurity guards down the back of their shirts and all set for a puck around on Macchu Picchu! You can take the boys out of Ireland but........ etc etc..... I befriended the two Ferns chaps and we actually spent a few days hanging out and doing a lot of drinking in Cusco in the days that followed but more about that in the next blog....
