05.10.2007
Climbing Wayna Picchu
After about an hour of exploring the ceremonial section of Machu Picchu, we decided it was time to climb Wayna Picchu, the world famous mountain “behind Machu Picchu”, before it was getting too hot. It is a one hour climb for averagely fit people as we are, but not that difficult because early morning the trail, basically stairs, is in the shade. Only four hundred people are allowed to climb each day, and at 10:00 am, right when we returned, the quota had been reached. You can only wonder what it must be like in July or August, the high season.
The view from the top is outstanding, especially since from above you can see the whole of Machu Picchu. It is only then when you realize that a large part of it consists of terraces and only a smaller part constitutes the temples, the residential and industrial part with its storages. From atop you can also see the last bit of the world famous Inca Trail with the Sun Gate!
Climbing down from the very top part of Wayna Picchu proved quite a challenge for Gilles, being confronted with extremely steep stairs and sometimes just ladders. On top of that, there was not much leeway for mistakes, the slope dropped abruptly several hundred meters down. Gilles then remembered that he actually had a strong fear of the heights. So he decided to glide down the stairs slowly on his bottom, sometimes choosing to crawl on all fours facing the mountain. The few hundred meters almost took us half an hour, with Heidi explaining in her teacher-like tone that it did not bother her at all, which is true.
Once we got back down into the archeological park of Mach Picchu, we had an extremely funny experience: some resident lamas, alpacas and vicunas of Machu Picchu went on a “tour through their city”. It was hilarious, them walking confidently and determined with their heads up past puzzled tourists. It seemed as if they knew exactly where they were going, leaving the tourists not knowing whether they should laugh, take photos or get out of their way quickly.
At 11:00 o’clock we were exhausted and took the bus back to Aguas Calientes, zigzagging the 12 km down the mountain. We got off the bridge crossing Rio Urubamba, making a quick stop at the small but very interesting “Museo de Sitio Manuel Chavez Ballón”.
