The main reason for us to visit Peru was to see Machu Picchu and to learn more about the Inca’s. While travelling for a year you don’t always end up in a country at the peak season. We have been joking that we in fact have been on an eternal fall instead of the eternal summer we had planned. It was summer in Peru, but unfortunately also the rainy season. While this had us quite nervous, it turned into an advantage when visiting Machu Picchu.
Machu Picchu continues to grow in popularity, at peak days it hits the limit of 5000 visitors and tickets for these sell out months in advance. For our day I could have booked tickets the day before, and our entrance time slot had under 100 people where it could have had up to 500. In addition there were still tickets available for the extra hikes the day before as well, these I have heard sell out a year in advance for some peak days. And with the guest numbers being low on our day, we were able to get views on Machu Picchu with very few people, almost like you would see on a postcard.
Machu Picchu is built on the top of ridge 2430 meters above sea level on the edge of the jungle. So the rainy season is risky as well in that it can be shrouded in fog, we were lucky that it was a mostly sunny day with some passing clouds, it gave a very mystical feeling to this magical place, but did mostly block the view when I was at the peak of my hike.
The additional hike I did was up to the peak of Wayna Picchu, which is the jagged peak you see in the background of most Machu Picchu pics, its a steep hike up with lots of stairs. It was fairly busy, but likely much better than peak as less than half of the tickets were sold. I did opt to do the extra hike to the Temple of the Moon, as far as I could tell only 1 other couple did this additional hike. The trail was down down down through the jungle, sometimes so steep it was via ladders. At the bottom was a ruin and caves among the jungle with no one else around, it was fun to go and explore them on my own, going in and out wherever I pleased. This was my reward for the upcoming climb, all the way back to the top mostly via stairs and some more ladders, it was an intense hike up.
While the views were amazing, getting up and close in the ruins themselves were the highlight for me. The huge blocks fit together perfectly were an intriguing feat of engineering as even today they don’t really understand how it was done in Inca times.
The sun temple with its windows that align so well with the sunrise on the solstices really highlight how important sun worship was to the people as well as their skills in engineering to pull it off.
And the Intihuatana, essentially a sort of sun dial, it was a carving of a single stone that was shaped perfectly to throw shadows onto carved areas that corresponds to different dates and times of the year, their way of keeping the annual calendar.
While our guide explained many of these things, there is so much to know about the Inca culture, if you ever travel to Peru, I advise you first read a book or two on this fascinating culture. I read “Turn Right at Machu Picchu” by Mark Adams which was a was told story that sprinkled a lot of facts on the Inca civilization. I would totally recommend it, but I would add 1 more book to get really deep into it.
Overall Machu Picchu lived up to the hype, the Inca’s were indeed an intricate civilization with advanced technology. So I totally recommend digging deep into this culture and taking a visit of your own to Machu Picchu.
