Honorable mention for Camina El Autor

Machu Picchu Trek, a free blog/info clearinghouse on trekking to Machupicchu has added us to their blogroll of recommended South American blogs, which I think is prettty cool.

 As for their own site, it seems to have all the bases covered, from routes and packing lists to tips on getting trekking insurance (yeah, I guess it's a thing).  I wish I'd have known about it when a friend of mine was about to hike the Inca Trail.

Machu Picchu GigaPan

Gigapans are wide-angle (in some cases 360-degree) collages of ultra-high resolution, high depth of field photographs.   A gigapan allows one to scan left and right, and sometimes up and down, in the stitched-together image and to zoom in on details to great depth (sometimes a mile or more away) and can be specially impressive when viewed at full-screen.

GigaPan.org hosts a number of these images, including this one of Machu Picchu:

It is well-worth checking out.    I, for instance, was rather tickled to be able to zoom in on and examine the ruins atop Waynapiqchu peak, as well as the Inti Punku -the Sun Gate- through which the Inca Trail enters the city, neither of which had I ever been able to observe with any detail, neither in person nor in any previous photograph or film.

When you get done with that one, you may decide you wish to check out Machu Picchu from atop Waynapiqchu.

Video: "Ghosts of Machu Picchu"

The US's Public Broadcasting System (PBS) TV network has started placing their programs online for free viewing.   Among them, and listed as one of the "most emailed", is Ghosts of Machu Picchu.

The video details new evidence as to the origins and uses of the famous Inca city, and recent archaeological finds at the site.  It can be viewed at http://video.pbs.org/video/1392958573

More Images from Machu Picchu

From L to R: (Standing in back) Juan Ramon, Nicolas
(Middle row) Peter, Betty, Ben, Ceci, Benji, Taysha, Susana
(Front row) Adrian, Pali, Betty Susana, Guille

Site map given to us at the gate

The mountains surrounding Machu Picchu.
The peak at right is Mt Yanantin.

Terracing down the western slope, at bottom is the Urubamba River

The "Mortars"
The purpose of these is unknown. Hiram Bingham supposed them to be mortars, but archaeologists now believe that, filled with water, they were used as mirrors, but for what purpose is still open to speculation

A reconstructed hut near the Ceremonial Rock

The Artisans' Wall and Group of the Three Doorways, in the Western Urban Sector

The Artisans' Wall
If you look closely at this image and the one above you may be able to notice a small opening half-way up the wall between the two sets of windows. It is a drainage duct built into the wall by the Incas, and example of the care with which they designed their cities

The Eastern Urban Sector, with the Royal Enclosures at front

The famed Temple of the Three Windows overlooking the plaza

The Torreon

Cusco. Day 3.

After spending the night in Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu Pueblo), we rose early to catch the train back to Ollantaytambo.

Guille, Nico, and Benji waiting for the train to Ollantaytambo


Train stop in Aguas Calientes

Aguas Calientes does not have a train station, instead the train just stops at a certain spot along Ave. Imperio de los Incas, and the conductors have people get on or off.

Luckier than the many who had to stand in line to buy tickets, we were able to get on right away and find our seats. Soon, we were back on our way back up the Urubamba Valley toward the highlands.

Urubamba Valley near Machu Picchu

Urubamba Valley near Ollantaytambo with Mt. Salcantay in the background

Ollantaytambo is a town about 75 kilometers from Cusco, at an altitude of about 2800 meters. It is located at the confluence of the Patachanca River with the Urubamba, which here takes the name Vilcanota.

The town itself, has been continuously inhabited since Inca times and the layout of the town center, and even the foundations of many buildings and the water channels that serve them are Inca.

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo was a tambo, or way station, protected by a fortress on the cliffs above the town. In late 17th century there was published a play about an Inca general who rebelled against his sovereign after being denied the love of the Inca's daughter, Cusi Qoyllur. In the fictional drama, the protagonist, Ollanta, is captured and held captive in Cusco, until the next Inca, Cusi Qoyllur's brother, frees him and places him in charge of the garrison near Yucay. Since then, due to the identification of the fictional hero with the locale, it gradually became known as Ollantaytambo (Ollanta's Tambo).

The fortress at Ollantaytambo

Inca period adobe construction below the fortress

Crowning the promontory on which the fortress is built, there stands an unfinished sun temple including a colossal wall made from six pink stone megaliths, each weighing some 20 tons. These stones once bore high-relief carvings of pumas and geometric designs, but these were smashed away by Spanish priests and only faint remains of them can yet be discerned.

This is some of the finest Inca megalithic stonework, and made all the more impressive by the fact that the quarry for this stone lies several hundred feet up a slope across the valley, at Kachiqhata. After being dragged across the valley floor, the stones were then pulled up a 1200 foot ramp to the temple site.

Some stones became "weary," and "refused" to move any further, were abandoned were they lay. Many are still there, including one in the town square.

"Weary" stone in Ollantaytambo's plaza

Ollantaytambo gained in historic significance as a result of the 1536 Battle of Ollataytambo. In that year, forces led by Hernando Pizarro and his native ally, Pascaq Inca, attacked the rebellious troops led by Manco Inca, who was attempting to re-establish Inca control over Peru. Manco arrayed his forces along the fortress' ramparts, resisting the Spanish onslaught. Outmaneuvering the Spanish, Manco's forces dealt the Spanish their first and only defeat at native hands in a major engagement.

The ramparts where Manco Inca arrayed his troops

After Ollantaytambo we were taken to a restaurant down the road for a buffet lunch. We could tell the kids were hungry because they ran to the buffet and ran back to their tables, and then ran back inside for more!




From there, we were driven to the last stop of our Cusco tours, the market town of Pisaq.

Pisaq is the site of Inca ruins located atop a mountain overlooking the modern town. The ruins are interesting, but the climb is brutal. I visited the site in 1981 and found it to be well-worth visiting. Of special interest were pre-Inca chambers that dot the cliffsides to the rear of the mountain. They appear to be burial chambers, but nary a one is intact, and I have read somewhere that there is no mention in the chronicles of them or the people who made them.


Our destination on this day, however, was the town plaza, dominated by its immense and venerable pisonay tree.

Pisaq is noted as a center for the sale of the area's handicrafts, specially weavings. The town hosts three weekly fairs, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Alas, we arrived on Friday, but there was still plenty to chose from, as Juancho found out.


I purchased a couple of weavings as well, choosing a particularly handsome one to hang on the wall in the family room.


Looking around the town, Juancho and I discovered this bakery, which had the most creative cuy hutch I have ever seen.



I noticed also that, as in Quinua, the townspeople of the area decorated their roofs with clay figures.


What is insteresting, however, is that in this case, the figures are in a style associated with the town of Pucara, several hundred kilometers to the south, in Puno.


After shopping, we headed out of town at rush hour.

Machu Picchu. Architectural details.

Blending of Natural and Architectural Elements







Fountains and Watercourses






Image Stones







Hinges, Rings, and Other Attachment Points

Cusco. Day 2.

Anyway, continuing with the story...

On our arrival in Cusco we found out that we had a change in our itinerary, and that our visits to the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu were being switched and that, as a result, we'd be visiting the latter on our second day and spending that night in Aguas Calientes.

Countryside on between Cusco and the Sacred Valley

So, on our second morning in Navel of the World, we took off toward Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley, where we would board the train toward Machu Picchu.

Betticha eating some of the famed Cusco corn
while waiting for the train

Boarding the train in Ollantaytambo

The train ride from Ollantaytambo is a three and half hour affair, descending from the Inca heartland down to the forests of the eastern slopes of the Andes. Once in Aguas Calientes, there follows a twenty-minute bus ride up a switchback mountain road to the ruins.


Once there, it took us a while to sort ourselves out, and get all of our names on our entrance tickes -something that we should have been told to do earlier since, as it was, we had only just over two hours left to visit the site.

Having got all that sorted out, we entered and after a short walk, caught our first close-up view of the citadel, with Huayna Picchu peak in the background.

From there, we made a climb that everyone found grueling to reach the base of the Guard House, which used to control passage from the Inca Trail into the citadel.

The Guard House

There we were rewarded for our efforts by one of the best views to be had in Machu Picchu:




No! Not that one!

This one:

The view from the base of the Guard House platform
Counterclockwise from the small peak at left: Intihuatana complex, Conjunto 1, Sun Temple (all in the Western Urban Sector), Condor Temple complex, 3 Doorways Complex (all in Eastern Urban Sector). Between the two urban sectors lies the Sacred Plaza, and in back is Huayna Picchu peak.

As the guide was going slowly, in part due to having to explain everything in two languages, I got impatient and went ahead, with Susana choosing to join me. As I knew enough about the site to know what I was looking at, I was able to guide Susa and I about the ruins and explain to her what was what. By moving faster than the guided tours along routes of our choosing, we were often able to have parts of the complex almost to ourselves.

Conjunto 1 in the Western Urban Sector.
The Main Gate is at left foreground, and the Intihuatana complex at top left.

The main entrance to the citadel


Private fountain in the Royal Enclosures in Conjunto 1

The Torreón (Tower), or Temple of the Sun, viewed from Conjunto 1

The Torreón

The Torreón and andenes (terraces) of the Lower Agricultural Sector,
with the Guard House at top

The "Artisans' Wall" in the Eastern Urban Sector

The "Artisans' Wall"

The Western Sector, viewed from the base of the Artisans' Wall

Temple of the Condor.
An in situ rock has been carved with a condor head, and a semicircle of white stone added to form the condor's ruff. The V-shaped rock formation in the background forms the birds' outstretched wings.

A vizcacha among the ruins

Storehouses and dwellings beside the Lower Agricultural Sector

Susana and Nico near the Intihuatana


Structures atop Huayna Picchu

Me