宇宁: Peru day 5- Day 2 of Inca trail

Machu Picchu (MP)

The best view on the ruins!

Another view of MP

Today is the day that we explore the ruins with Edy.

The group left the hotel at 7am as the bus line is shorter. It is a golden interval between folks trying to catch sun rise at MP and the arrival of trains from Ollantaytambo

Joining the bus queue and getting on circuit 3

The ruins as we approach circuit 3

We had a full 2 hours with Edy showing us the ruins and explaining how the Spanish never found Machu Picchu. The Spanish ambushed the Inca king at the last gate and they never revealed where they got the gold and silver that the Spanish were after. So Spaniards never discovered MP.

It was discovered by Hiram Bingham who is looking for it actively after knowing the last gate events and a recording of a sacred place for Inca. But it turns out he's not the first person who discovered it. The person who bought the land actually found it but didn't understand the significance of the site.

View of MP now vs when it was first discovered

Getting baked by the sun!

MP can be easily shrouded in the mist and fog created by the mountains range surrounding it. And only the Inca royal visited this sacred site and it's supported by a few hundred people and kept very quiet and inaccessible to most folks.

They think that the cusco scouts came to inform the king of the Spanish invasion and brought diseases. Hence the pachamama tombs has bodies that's not mummified as they realized they are infectious

So the city likely got abandoned. It's not clear where the gold went, but likely looted or moved.

A lot of gold hunters are digging around the mountains around MP as the treasures were never discovered.

More views of MP

The water system has built in filtering and we can see the water still running in the cistern systems.

Water system with built in filtering

Edy also explained how the sun temple is built where they figured out where they can see the sun goes between Sun Gate to the mountain on the opposite side and how it tracks between summer and winter solstice. That is why the Sungate was created with the alignment to the Sun temple

Edy explaining how the Sun Temple works

We were just there yesterday!

The Sun Temple has very high quality stones that is merged perfectly. And the King has access to doors and a bedroom and a kitchen that has stones that might be used for rituals.

Door to Sun temple

The King chamber

He also showed the King's seating area

Showing how the Inca king use this chamber

The cóndor temple area shows niches that are used to store mummified bodies. The innards of the bodies are removed and placed for condors to feed as they believe that brings the bodies closer to heaven. Condors, Pumas and Snakes are the 3 sacred animals for the Incas.

This was used as a niche for mummified bodies

After the 2 hours tour, we got out of MP and got the bus back to Agua caliente.

There we had lunch

Our bonded group with celebratory lunch after seeing MP!

Lunch with guinea pig and alpaca

We have some free time to wander around AG

Views of the town

Agua Caliente town

Edy gave us the train tickets and instructions on how to find the train station as he's off for another tour and Miguel has another train schedule that's cheaper. The 430pm Vista Dome train is a dog and pony show with snacks, fashion show that's pretty funny.

Chaos in the train station

"Free" snacks

Priceless views again!

Fashion shows on the train with Alpaca garments

We found a group of guys who did the 5 day hike and got info from them. It's crazy as they also did the Huanipichu hike on top of the 4 days. That's the young mountain beside MP that has monkey steps almost all the way!

We got a ride back to Cusco where we checked into our previous hotel again for the night