How to almost die in Peru

With a title like that, you’d think food poisoning, mugged and left for dead in a dark alley, being attacked by Indians in the forest, or having a traffic accident. However, the tail of this post has nothing to do with that. The food may have gotten to us a little bit, but nothing that bad (neither of us got to the point of throwing up, it was just belly ache), we were never mugged or felt the least bit unsafe, the Indians are actually quite friendly, and we haven't had any traffic accidents yet.

But we did almost die in Machu Picchu.

Keep in mind that I hadn’t slept much the night before, and we had to get up at 4:30am to be in the line for the buses (another US$7 dollars!) at 5am, because the buses started running at 5:30am and we HAD to be at the top by 6am when they opened, otherwise we would not get our ticket to Huayna Picchu. Tip 1- buy your ticket to Machu Picchu in Aguas Calientes the night before, as they do NOT sell them at the entrance. Tip 2- if you have a student card, it’s half the price! Tip 3- they only allow 400 people per day into Huayna Picchu. You don't have to pay extra, but if you don't make it there by 6am and RUN to the entrance of Huayna Picchu to get your ticket you won't be part of the 400. We got there early and ran, and I got number 296... 15 minutes later and we wouldn't have gone in...

So after getting our tickets, we had until 10am to explore Machu Picchu before we could go into Huayna Picchu. This was actually perfect, because we could have a little breakfast and walk round the ruins, take loads of pictures, and enjoy the place without that many tourists around, since the majority of the people would come around 10-11am.



Machu Picchu is absolutely incredible. How they managed to build an entire city of stone like that, in the top of mountains is completely beyond me. It may be expensive to get here, and the Peruvian government may be making millions from the tourists, but it’s totally worth it!



At 10am we made our way to the line for the entrance of Huayna Picchu, which is the tall, round looking mountain you see at the back of the pictures. Yep, we were going all the way to the top...

Of course, I already almost died on the way up, but fair enough, I could see what I was getting myself into from the beginning, and the views from the top were definitely worth it... It's incredible that the Incas managed to build stone steps around the entire mountain to get to the top of Huayna Picchu, which was a guard post since from there they could see all around and send messages to the main city if they saw any danger.



So we walked around, relaxed in the sunshine, discovered Granadina (close cousin of Maracuya, just a little sweeter) and took lots of pictures. Somewhere around 12:30pm, we were ready to move on, which to me meant going back down to Machu Picchu and from there walking down to Aguas Calientes. Except that we saw a little sign that said "Machu Picchu" with an arrow to the left, and "Gran Caverna" with an arrow to the right. Curiosity spiked, we decided to check what this Gran Caverna was all about... and took that path instead. It's downhill. Very much downhill. Stone step after stone step downhill... with steel cables to hold on to because the steps are almost vertically downhill... At some points, 20m ladders going straight down...


Notice how far away the river looks on this picture...



By this point I'm starting to get worried, because if we have to go all the way back UP to make our way back to Machu Picchu, I'm either going to die or kill someone. But we passed a couple who was going up and they told us there was another way around to get to Machu Picchu, so we didn't have to backtrack. Ok. Good. So we keep going down, so much so that I can see and hear the river, which from the top of Huayna Picchu looked like a little silver snake...

And now notice how close the river looks on this one!!

We make it to the Gran Caverna... and go "So this was it???" alright, back then.



And the way back, happens to be UP. Not the same way we came, but UP nonetheless... We had brought a 2,5l bottle of water for the two of us, but by this point we would've gladly drank the entire bottle each... which of course was not possible. So up and up and UP we go. And round and round and round we go. We had no idea where the heck we were, and we didn't know how long it would be until we got to the entrance of Huayna Picchu, and then back to Machu Picchu.

Remember that we entered the Huayna Picchu complex at 10am... you are only allowed to be there until 4pm... this is 3pm and we're starting to get worried... are we going to make it out in time?? Finally at 3:40pm we see the light, and get to sign our little names out. As a matter of curiosity, after being completely exhausted and feeling our legs were made of silly putty, we asked the guards at the entrance if anyone had ever been crazy enough to count how many steps it was to go all the way around... and the guard tells us: 13,000 steps!!!

Our jaws dropped. Yep, we went up and down 13,000 stone steps in one day, and there was no way we were going to keep going and walk down to Aguas Calientes... so $7 dollars later, we were in the comfy air conditioned bus, back to Aguas Calientes where a good hot shower and a nice bed was waiting for us to collapse.

By 6pm we were asleep. Dead. Or almost...