Machu Picchu, Peru

Yes, it looks just like in the photographs. Perched high amid improbably pointy peaks, with sheer slopes dropping away to either side. After you've craned your neck to peer down into the deep canyons, you can gaze up at the surrounding ring of equally precipitous pinnacles, the jagged edges of their rocky slopes softened by a fuzz of greenery. And beyond them again to tier after tier of Andean ridges rippling away towards the horizon, with snow-topped summits standing sunlit and proud above the wisps of cloud.

You know in advance how it's going to look, but, despite that, Machu Picchu doesn't disappoint, because there is more to it than the photographs can replicate. For a start, they can't convey the 360° sweep of the panorama in all directions, the sense of being at the centre of a vast landscape of breath-taking majesty. Nor the changing patterns of light and shadow on the mountainsides. Nor the spine-tingling chill of the breeze. Nor the sounds of the swallows that swoop around the site. Nor, of course, the sounds of your fellow-visitors.

Machu Picchu is one of the world's most famous historic monuments, a World Heritage Site and recently acclaimed by popular vote as one of seven "New Wonders of the World", in the company of such places as the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal. Despite its remote location high in the Peruvian Andes, it attracts nearly half a million visitors a year and their presence takes its inevitable toll both on the fabric of the site itself and on the experience of seeing it. Nevertheless, it is an extraordinary place and, sensibly planned, a visit can be an exhilarating experience. Before discussing how to plan a visit, let's try to answer a few of the basic questions.

* What exactly is Machu Picchu? *

This is a better question than it sounds. Machu Picchu is an Inca construction, of course, and the Incas, working without wheels, must have gone to great pains to put it together up on its inaccessible perch, but no one is now sure of its original purpose.

The name gives little clue; it simply means "old mountain" in the local Quechua dialect. Of course, its position would have made highly defensible, but only for self-protection, not to provide strategic defence for the more populous Inca settlements in the "sacred valley" of the upper Urubamba. Nor is it configured like a fortress; no battlements guard the approach. This in itself casts doubt on the theory that Machu Picchu might have been a citadel of last resort, a final refuge to which the Inca royalty could flee if all else seemed lost. Recent work has in any case shown that it was abandoned long before the Inca Empire fell.

The idea that it was purely a sacred site has also waned. Much as archaeologists love religious explanations for what they do not understand they are not insistent on them in this case. Although there are a fair number of what seem to be temples among Machu Picchu's buildings, they do not predominate. At one time, the high proportion of female skeletons buried there was construed as evidence that it might have been some kind of Inca "convent", but this notion may have been based on a misunderstanding about the human remains that had actually been disinterred.

The preferred hypothesis currently is that Machu Picchu was a royal retreat, a holiday home for an Inca monarch, analogous to, say, Sandringham or Balmoral. This might also explain why it was eventually deserted, on the death of the monarch who favoured it. And indeed, imagining oneself for a moment as an Inca king, Machu Picchu might indeed seem a splendid spot to which to nip off for a quiet weekend away from the cares of office and the lenses of the paparazzi, perhaps cosseted by a few carefully chosen companions whose mortal remains might linger to confuse archaeologists five centuries later.

* The site *

I've said that Machu Picchu looks just like in the photographs, and it does, but one of the aspects the photos fail to convey is how steep the ups and downs are within the site itself. Given that the city - if that is what it is - sits like a saddle on the back of the mountain, most of it clings to the flanks rather than lying flat on top of the spine.

The site divides into two halves, the division being between fore and aft, not lengthwise along the spine. The first half, reached as you approach on the path along the flank of the mountain from the entrance, is devoted to agricultural terraces, like a series of steep steps, each a few metres wide and supported by laboriously-constructed stonework. Maize, fruit and vegetables were probably grown here, though irrigation would have been a problem, and drought is another hypothesis suggested for the site's abandonment. In this area are several stone buildings, partially restored and re-thatched, which may have been workers' accommodation or storehouses for the produce.

As you progress beyond them the vista opens up, with the urban half of the site ahead, the valley falling away to your right, and tier after tier of agricultural terraces climbing up to your left. At the top of these, on what is called Funeral Rock is a ruin known as the Caretaker's Hut. It should be explained that many of the structures have retained the names ascribed to them by the American academic/explorer Hiram Bingham, who "discovered" Machu Picchu in 1911. Much of his conjecture as to usage has since been disproved, but the labels have stuck; they just shouldn't be taken too literally.

In any case, it is worth heading uphill to this point first, since it gives you a great overview of the whole site, albeit one you have probably seen on many picture postcards and indeed in the first of the photos above. The overview enables you to identify in advance many of the features you will see at closer quarters when you proceed into the urban half.

* Specific features *

The buildings of Machu Picchu are in a ruinous state, mostly with little more than the foundations remaining, and a liberal use of the imagination is required to interpret what is seen.

Although the city was never found by the Spanish conquistadors and was therefore spared the ravages wreaked by those vile vandals elsewhere in the lands they conquered, nature took an almost equal toll in the following centuries during which the site was overgrown by cloud forest. When this was cleared by Hiram Bingham, it was done in a most ham-fisted way, destroying much of what was uncovered in the process. Moreover, he took many of the remains and artefacts "for further study" back to Yale University, which has only recently agreed in principle to return them to Peru.

So what does that leave at the site itself, other than stones? Well, for a start the stones themselves are pretty impressive, massive slabs cut and fitted together with an extraordinary precision. Particularly noteworthy structures are:

~ The Temple of the Sun. Built on a solid granite slab, this retains some of the original elaborate stonework, with a doorway that apparently used to be inlaid with gold and jewels, together with windows cunningly arranged to catch the sun's rays at particular angles at particular dates in the calendar, rather like stonehenge.

~ The Principal Temple, with a massive altarpiece, this has three remaining walls pierced by some elegantly symmetrical decorative niches, though one corner is crumbling. Adjacent is

~ Temple of the Three Windows - very large windows, that provide a landmark when seen from elsewhere in the site, their frames fashioned from intricately carved stone.

~ The Intihuatana, which roughly translates as "hitching post for the sun", a small stone column and integral supporting altar, located atop a small series of terraces. Pointing vertically upwards, its purpose was to mark the solstices and equinox by the degree (or absence) of shadow, making it a sort of Solar Year sundial.

~ The Temple of the Condor, so called because the vaulting stone structure does roughly resemble a condor's wings, opening to take flight. This encloses a carved sculpture in the floor that also represents a condor, with additional white stones inlaid to show the head and ruff around its neck.

~ The Sacred Rock, located at the far end of the site, a huge slab implanted upright so that it stands three metres high and seven wide, its original purpose unclear, but designated "sacred" because that seems to be the pattern of nomenclature at Machu Picchu.

There are also buildings with channels carved for water to run through, which might be baths, either ceremonial or practical, or wash-houses. There is a building believed to be a prison, and another that may have been for preparing food. And a presumed Palace, of course, though this is surprisingly lacking in visible magnificence. Perhaps, on the assumption that the whole complex constituted a kind of palace, it didn't need to be individually grand. Or perhaps it's just that it was stripped bare long ago.

Indeed, if I haven't dwelt long in describing the notable structures, it is because their bare, unadorned state leaves them short of individual character. The atmosphere comes for the site as a whole, its spectacular location and its little nooks and crannies - enclosed corners alternating with wide open spaces where llamas and alpacas graze - encountered as you wander round. There is even a tiny garden where seeds unearthed around the site have been planted and grown, although many originated from quite different altitudes and were presumably carried up by the Inca inhabitants. Passion fruit, grenadillas, coca and different varieties of orchid and begonia are all being cultivated here.

* Round and about *

Apart from ambling round the site itself, there are several other walks you can undertake once there to enhance your visit.

The most strenuous, but allegedly most rewarding, is to the top of Huayna Picchu, the sugarloaf mountain that forms the backdrop to the archetypal view of the site. The trail takes about an hour and a half, and can accessed only at an extra cost (US$20) by a limited number of 400 visitors a day, on a first-come-first-served basis. They were already sold out by 8.30 a.m. on the morning I was there. A pity; vertiginous though the path is, the views must be spectacular.

A similar distance back the other way is a ruin known as the Sun Gate that had ritual significance for the sun-worshipping Incas, but which I didn't manage to reach either. Beyond it lie further ruins and ultimately the Inca Trail, the alternative approach to the site for the fit, rugged and well-acclimatised.

I did manage to explore a little way along the third trail that leads round the side of the mountain to what is known as the Inca Bridge, which crosses a gap in the rocky path around an almost vertical escarpment. This is now considered unsafe and is officially closed, I'm glad to say, since it saved me having to decide whether or not to attempt it.

If you reached the top early and wanted to explore all these side-trails, you could easily spend at least a day on them alone.

* Planning your visit *

Probably the best way to visit Machu Picchu is to walk there, along the Inca trail. If you don't want to do the full five-day trek, there are shorter routes starting from various points along the train-track, but even the shortest involves stiff climbs and high altitude and is not to be undertaken lightly.

Probably the worst way to visit Machu Picchu is to take the train over from Cusco in the morning, see the site at lunchtime and take the train back in the afternoon. You will be among crowds the whole time, won't have long enough to explore once there, and will miss the changing light at each end of the day. Not to mention missing much else to see en route.

Apart from chickening out of the Inca Trail trek, I don't think my wife and I did too badly. We approached slowly, allowing ourselves time to see the Inca sites around Cusco (where Sacsayhuaman, for example, is quite as extensive as Machu Picchu) and in the sacred valley (where Pisac is also spectacularly, though not so remotely, situated), staying at Ollantaytambo (another outstanding site) and catching the train only from there. After arrival at Aguas Calientes, the railhead for Machu Picchu, we did not go up to the ruins until after lunch, just as those who wanted to catch the 3.00 train back to Cusco were beginning to depart. This still gave us several hours before nightfall, when everyone has to be out, and it enabled us to see the site in the mellow evening light when it was relatively deserted (see leading pic above).

This approach does mean staying overnight in the vicinity of course. There are a number of hotels locally, including some relatively inexpensive hostels, though they all tend to be priced above the Peruvian norm . There is even a campsite.

Early birds try to return for dawn the next day on one of the first shuttle buses, which start running at around 5.30. I have to admit we didn't manage to be quite that energetic, though there still weren't too many people about when we reached the top and we had a few clear hours before the inrush of the first day-trippers.

There is a fleet of twenty of these shuttle buses, each of which leaves as soon as it is full, providing continuous service up and down the steep hair-pinned ascent to Machu Picchu. Lengthy queues only seems to build up after the arrival of the first train at around 10.00 in the morning (upwards) and (downwards) for the departure of the 3.00 train back. The ascent from the bottom of the Urubamba gorge is about 600 metres of altitude, so taking the bus saves a strenuous climb.

* Your fellow visitors *

One man's boon companion is another man's egregious intruder, and of course everyone else has as much or as little right to be at Machu Picchu as you have, but that doesn't mean you have to welcome their presence.

In common with all historic places of comparable prestige, it does get very crowded, especially in the middle of the day, hence the importance of being there early and/or late if you want to find some solitude and space for reflection. Otherwise you may find it impossible to see the Sacred Stone except as a backdrop for mutual portrait photography by parties of Japanese tourists, or the Intihuatana except surrounded by a ring of Californians holding hands while they exhort each other to breathe deeply to absorb the primal energy, to visualise the molecules that make up their being and to sense the duality of the sun and moon. No, I'm not making it up for satire's sake; that verbiage is taken verbatim from the soundtrack of my video.

On the plus side, by keeping one's ears open one can pick up an almost continual commentary on the various details of the site by listening to the spiels of the various tour guides. Piecing together overheard fragments of English, Spanish, French and Italian, my wife and I found there was practically no aspect of the monument on which we could not eavesdrop some guidance if required. It became quite an enjoyable pastime in its own right. If you have even a modicum of linguistic knowledge, to employ a guide of your own would be entirely superfluous.

* Price and practical detail *

Visiting Machu Picchu isn't cheap. Entry currently costs 120 Nuevos Soles (£20) per person. To this you have to add US$6 (£3) for the bus-ride up from Aguas Calientes, if that's the way you choose to go. Keep a sol or two in your pocket on departure for the Peruvian lad dressed in Inca costume who will run down the hill keeping pace with the bus, waving goodbye and clambering on board to collect tips at the last moment. Okay, it's tacky tourist stuff, but the poor kids deserve some reward for their pains and they do it in style.

If I read the notice at the bus-stop correctly, you can't actually buy your entry tickets at the site itself, so make sure you have them before boarding the bus (ours were supplied in advance through our tour operator, which is probably the safest way, but I believe there is a ticket office to buy them in Aguas Calientes). The village is also the best place to buy any picnic food or water you want to take with you. Once up at the top there is only a snack bar by the bus-stop or the expensive Sanctuary Hotel, and nothing inside the site itself. Apart from water, make sure to take a hat and sunscreen cream. Even on an overcast day at altitude in the tropics the sun can burn you badly. Insect repellent too. And a walking stick or pole to help you clamber around the ruins.

If the weather's really bad, you might question the value of going up at all, since the drama of the location is half the experience and if there were nothing but mist and rain to be seen that drama would be lost. The rainy season is roughly November-March. Apparently some people like going then because it's less crowded, greener and warmer (you're in the southern hemisphere), despite the danger of missing the magnificent views. The busiest, driest - and coolest - months are June, July and August. We felt we chose well to go in October, though there is a seasonal risk of early rain. April and May are said to be good too.

* Conclusion *

So what does it all amount to, a visit to Machu Picchu? The view from the top is a great view - provided you haven't gone there on too cloudy a day - but arguably it's not much greater than numerous other views in the high Andes, or indeed in other major mountain ranges. It's an intriguing archaeological site, but arguably no more so than others around Cusco and the sacred valley, or indeed in many others ancient places around the world. In any case, unless you're an expert in Inca architecture the fine points probably won't mean very much to you, and few relics of everyday human existence remain. With so little known about its original purpose, you can't - or at least I couldn't - envisage the lives of the people who inhabited the place. If you wanted to be cynical you could say that visiting Machu Picchu has all been hyped up out of proportion, whilst visiting is oversubscribed and pricey too.

But Machu Picchu didn't leave me wanting to be cynical. It does truly feel like a special place when you are there. It is certainly like nowhere else I've been, and I thoroughly enjoyed my two trips to the top. I was indeed exhilarated. Having been, done it and neglected to buy the tee-shirt, I wouldn't particularly want to return - once is enough - but I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone else who has the chance to visit.

© torr 2008

A review of an outstanding, but admittedly expensive, place to stay locally may be found at:
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Inkaterra_Puebl​o_Hotel_Machu_Picchu__Review_5 731324

A review of a good place to stay in Cusco may be found at:
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Casa_San_Blas_C​usco__Review_5749890