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It's Half the Adventure

By Mike Beris - 2009-12-17

The mysterious ruins of Machu Picchu have baffled and delighted archaeologists and anthropologists for almost 100 years. How this stone city was delicately perched atop mountains is still unclear, and tourists flock to see South America’s most incredible man-made attraction. But what adds to the excitement of seeing the ruins is getting there.

No single bus, train, or even road will take a site-seer to Machu Picchu. We learned from the guest book at our Cuzco hostel that there are many ways to arrive at and enter the National Park. After listening to the advice of a few adventurers who had tried different means, we settled on our strategy, one that would be a fun mix of risk and certainty.

The five of us left our hostel in two taxis and arrived at the bus station across town around dusk. Two hours of sleepless riding in a full-sized bus lay ahead of us.

Wait, did I just doze off? Score! That would be the last time I get to do that for a while. After several unmarked stops along the dark road to pick up some rural passengers, we finally arrived at…where? Where the heck were we? It was 11:45 pm when the bus driver dropped us off under a single streetlamp in an unpaved parking lot. Things were starting to get interesting.

The five of us piled into a much smaller white van, the kind with a roof rack for backpacks and sacks of potatoes. I layed my head against the window and tried to get comfortable while Daniel chatted with some Brazilian girls also headed for the ruins. The next few hours were spent on a pot-holed road hugging a jagged rock wall. My side of the van didn’t face a jagged rock wall. Shining my flashlight through the window, I could barely make out the floor of the ravine to our left. I decided it was probably less stressful to make this leg of the trip in the dark.

After what felt like a few close calls and some stream crossings, lights appeared through the trees ahead of us. It was 2:30 am, and we had arrived at the tiny town of Santa Theresa, the next landmark on our Machu Picchu adventure.

The next leg of the trip was going to be on foot, so we had a decision to make: do we start hiking immediately and try to arrive early; or do we get a few hours of shuteye and depart in the daylight? The latter option appealed to our weary bodies, so we started to look around for a place to sleep. Now, as a bicycling foursome, we had always avoided towns when trying to camp.

But now we were smack-dab in the middle of a lit-up town without bikes, tents, or even sleeping bags, and certainly without privacy or even darkness. The Plaza de Armas was already occupied by a few shifty characters, so we made our way to the city limits. On a nearby hill we saw a cross lit by spotlights. It rested above the town and seemed as safe a spot as any. So we put on all the clothes we had, stretched out on the dirt, and tried to get some sleep.

Dawn arrived, and we breakfasted at the market on egg sandwiches and instant coffee.

We had a full day of hiking ahead of us, and it started with a descent out of town.

We found a trail that leads along the river and quickly discovered how smart we were to start the hike at dawn instead of in the middle of the night; we were in a tropical paradise.

Huge banana leaves, coconut trees, lush vegetation everywhere; and humidity! We hadn’t experienced that in the high Altiplano in Bolivia or desert in Chile. For the next several hours, we trekked through the valley and saw a few small houses, animals, and once in a while, a truck or taxi.

Eventually we came to our next landmark: the train station. Many travelers take some kind of vehicle to this station and ride the rails to the next town, Agua Calientes.

We decided that, with the rails as our guide, we’d hike into town and save some money. Sean, Daniel and Mike had taken a "rest" at a waterfall while Dan and Chris continued on.

When we got to Agua Calientes, it kind of felt like walking into Disneyland. We had seen this before: what happens when a formerly third-world town suddenly (over a few decades) gets a landslide of wealthy tourist money. There were dozens of pizza shops, souvenir stands, and hostels, and in true South American style, all offered the exact same thing as their competitors. The only way, it seemed, for one business to thrive over the others was to have people outside hawking for tourists to spend their money there.

After dividing our efforts, we found the ATM, the cheapest hostel in town, and the pizza place with the best prices. Our long trip had come to an end. Stuffing our faces with pizza (priced for tourists), we excitedly discussed the next day’s plans to see the ruins.