Huanchaco

I arrived in Huanchaco yesterday morning. The bus was a couple hours late leaving Lima but it didnt really matter because I would have had to wait at the hostel anyways. Its pretty nice here, yesterday was a bit cooler and cloudy than usual but still nice. I took a surfing lesson for a couple hours and today I think I will just rent a board for the afternoon to practice. Ive also been shopping around for some of the Spanish teachers here and will keep doing some lessons. Unfortunately, it appears I left my camera in Iquitos, which is actually kind of funny because I  kept telling people it was so old I didnt care if I lost it when they would say not to take it to whatever place in the jungle or to some of the markets. However, Im pretty sure I left it between some of the cushions at my hostel in Iquitos. Anyways, not too big a deal but youll have to settle for this internet image of Huanchaco instead of one of my own:

Machu Picchu Pictures

Here are my belated pictures from Machu Picchu, I managed to upload them while waiting for the bus in Lima and am now on the bus to Trujillo (then Huanchaco) with spotty wifi, but good enough to add some text. I was at Machu Picchu on Jan 11th, a Saturday, and had a nice sunny day in the middle of a week that had been full of rain. In fact it was so sunny I got quite a sunburn that lasted for about another week following, though its a bit unclear how much came from Machu Picchu and how much from Lake Titicaca..

Heres a picture from the peak of my hike at the top of Montaña de Machu Picchu.

Heres the train to Machu Picchu in Ollataytambo

Looking up from the riverside trail while walking between Aguas Calientes and the Machu Picchu trail.

Above you can see the switchbacks which lead up to Machu Picchu, with little trails cutting between them for people who are walking.

And everyone that day was walking, as there had been a "rumba", or landslide, from all the rain which knocked out the road in two places. It was actually a fair bit of walking especially at altitude, and was quite clogged with people. I saw many I thought might keel over dead at any moment.

Looking out from one of the switchbacks on the way up.

Found a nice spot to drink coffee and wait for the tour to start, which was running behind because of the lack of bus access.

If you take an immediate left upon entering theres a staircase which takes you to this overlook which is the classic photo people get. Now the Franz brand has made it up here, and into the Amazon Jungle too.

Below are some shots of the ruins. The ones with better color were taken after my hike when the sun was providing more favorable lighting.

In the above two pictures if you look closely you can see the terraces are all linked together, some via stairs at their ends and others via small stone steps forming a ladder that juts out from the wall. By doing various backtracking and ups and downs you can get to pretty much any terrace.

The above two pictures show the main entrance to Machu Picchu. The doorway was quite tall, indeed it cleared my head by quite a bit, which was purportedly for two reasons. First so the Incan king could be carried through. When he came from Cuzco he was carried the entire way, which is quite a bit more impressive to me now having seen how long it takes to drive, train, and finally hike up there. Second, supposedly it was to intimidate anyone who might come to fight them, as they would see how tall the door was and think the Incans to be giants. In the lower picture youc an see two holes, one on either side of the entrance way. There used to be a wooden gate that could be fitted across this doorway with a crossbar secured using the small hand-sized stone posts inside each of those holes.

The guide is pointing out that there is an intricate water collection system built into the city. Above you see a natural rock sticking out of the wall which the Incans built around rather than moving. Below in the corner to the left you see a small area where water runoff is collected and channeled into the citys water system.

Above you can see the rounded masonry, which indicates a structure of significance to the Incans. Almost all of the stonework at Machu Picchu is square, but this is one of their temples.

They point out that the Incans could make stonework fit together quite well without mortar when they wanted to, as they did for important structures like temples, etc. Many of the other buildings arent quite so exactly fitted together and so have a clay like mortar holding the bricks together, which is pretty impressive to have stood up to over half a century of the elements.

Above is a picture from the area used as a stone quary, kind of an oddity among the well built ruins its just a maybe pool sized area with a bunch of big rocks laying around in various stages of being shaped. They apparently used a lot of water and sand to shape rocks. Also, in order to break the rocks they would find small cracks and jam pieces of dry wood into them, then pour water over to make them swell and crack the rock.

Heres an unfinished doorway to one of the temples. On the front you can see the place where a horizontal beam would have been put to complete the entryway giving a structure to build the roof from. On the left face you can see small little stubs sticking out of the rocks. These were used for handles in order to lift the stones up into place, and once the building was reaching completion would be sanded away.

The repair work these days is not what it used to be.

There are 3-5ish llamas which roam freely eating the grass. They are enormously fat and entitled.

There are some strange rodent-esque mammals running around in some of the lower off-limit grassy areas. They almost looked like chinchillas, I was kind of curious what they are.

I had to cut my guided tour short to make the last part of the entrance window for the Montaña de Machu Picchu hike. It took maybe 1.5 hours each way including stopping for lunch and to admire the views. The trail is originally part of the Inca trail which led through the mountains to Cusco, but the Incans destroyed its connection before abandoning the city.

Here I am at the summit of Machu Picchu the Mountain (the original picture from this post was taken just a few yards away). The hike lands you up on the top ridge of the mountain, with spectacular views all around. I actually enjoyed watching the clouds the most up here. They appear out of nowhere as they come up the mountain slopes, then disappear again as they get higher. Sometimes if a particularly strong cloud forms it pushes itself up over the ridge and moves onward.

Machu Picchu on the left and way out to the right you can see the tip of Aguas Calientes (below too), where the train from Ollataytambo deposits you and most people stay overnight.