Peru - Sunday 25 October 1998
We should wake up early (4 AM) to be at the sungate at 6.30. It must be very impressive to see sunrise here.
We wake up later. Because of heavy fog and rain we won't see anything at the sungate. It's really beastly weather! We're walking in the rain all the time.
We don't have to walk for long today. We leave at 6 AM and arrive at 8 AM at Machu Picchu. It's very quiet at that time. Only a few other groups of Inca Trailers have arrived.
First, we have breakfast in the restaurant. There, we can warm up and dry. They have very good coffee here! Around 9.30 AM it stops raining. We meet our new guide: Fernando.
Fernando whispers all the time, as if everything he tells is secret. Funny.
He tells about the three worlds the Inca's knew:
"Condor" - upperworld (heaven)
"Poema" - real world (now)
"Slang" - underworld (dead)
He also explains how Machu Picchu was built abnd how the buildings were classifie. Some groups of inhabitants had their own part of town. The map of the city was created with intricate mathematic rules.
The Inca's used a special building-technique with large stones, which fit really close at each other. This technique was used for holy buildings and for the house of the Inca (leader).
We have also some time for ourselves to walk through the Machu Picchu. There are a lot of people now! On the highest point are some lamas.
We go to the village near Machu Picchu. We eat pizza and buy souvenirs. It's really eay to haggle: first you show some attention, then you say you don't want to buy it in a self-confident way. The price goes down by 50 percent immediately! T-shirts that cost a fortune in Machu Picchu are really inexplensive here.
The place where we eat is the platform of the railway station. It's a tuning point for the train to Cusco, so the train is halting here for quite some time. We really like to go back to Cusco: we are very dirty and want to take a shower.
Near the station of Urubamba, Freddy wants us to get ready for leaving the train. He runs to the square to see if there is a bus we can take. There is one. Now we gan arrive in Cusco two hours earlyer than when we had staid in the train! Funny country, where small busses are faster than trains.
The van is really crowded, also with some other tourists. I can get a place at the frontside of the bus, so I won't get sick. The last part, the driver plays music of Bob Marley! Beautiful! I think I get homesickness now...
Back in the hotel, I feel a little bit disappointed. I'm stalled in Mike and Ronalds room. It's okay, but I don't have so much contact with them. I don't have enough energy to have dinner now.
