Aguas Calientes and Machu Pichu

OK, no more suspense. We have finally made it here. I will start with complaining. The 2 hour train to Aguas Calientes, the little town below Machu Pichu, was 57 dollars round trip. To give you something to compare it too, the 19 hour bus trip from Lima to Cuzco cost us a little under 20 bucks. The Peruvians pay 6 bucks to get to Aguas Calientes. Yes, I know they can't afford it and if the money went to the community it would be ok, but it doesn't, it goes to the Chilean company that owns the train. Those Chilean bastards!!! After much whining, we bought the tickets. Only a train goes there. Aguas Calientes also does its part to exploit the tourists, naturally. And there are more of us gringos in the town than Peruvians. This part of Peru, seems to be another land, the land of MONEY! And I am going to stop the complaining part of the blog here.
We bummed around the little town for the day and visited their hot springs, which give the town its name, Aguas Calientes ( Hot Waters for you gringos). We bathed in the curative waters and then headed further away from the town to a waterfall, where the incident with Matty's sandal occurred, watch the thrilling video:

The sandal was saved. The waterfall was great since besides it's beauty, we didn't have to buy a ticket to see it. You know? Because I don't, why is it that all of these places that tourists come to lose their innocence? It's not the tourists' fault. We want to see, that's all. I guess its the capitalists. We all have a bit of capitalism in us, I guess. From every street in this little town to the hot springs, I see stores, and overpriced lunches, can't smoke in the luke warm hot springs, all of these rules. I hate rules! But this little waterfall above the hot springs, which no one goes to is innocent, no rules, no vendors, just us being us, rescuing sandals, being silly. I can't stop my opinions. Sorry if it bothers you.

Anyway, we were here for Machu Pichu and after recovering a little from our illnesses (colds, which we were passing around back and forth) we set out for the legendary lost city. It started at 4 in the morning since we were determined to watch the sunrise over Machu Pichu. We started out in pitch black with only my new and cheap headlight to guide our path. It was a dangerous undertaking, but we set our minds to succeed. Yes, we started our trek. It was hard as hell. It started raining and the trail to Machu Pichu was thousands of steps from the misty jungle to the top of the mountain. We huffed and puffed our way slowly to the top.

But soon we began to see the end of our treacherous path, the top where we paid a whopping 40 bucks to enter the site. I wanted to protest, but the trail was cleverly designed to break down our bodies and our will to fight. And the sunrise did not happen because of the clouds and the rain. But the view was incredible. This place totally surprised us, after visiting a lot of ruins all over Peru, we figured that this place was totally hyped up. It was not ladies and gentlemen. Machu Pichu is really awesome. This was our sunrise...

Machu Pichu is a mystery. Experts say that it was built right before the Spanish arrived as a summer home for the Inca elites. But experts are experts at guessing, since all we have are guesses about this place. What we do know is that Machu Pichu was abandoned. No one knows why. It was rediscovered in 1911 and ever since then, after digging and more digging we come up with more questions. We all wonder what this place is about, but no one contests that it is breathtaking...

We couldn't immediately take the famous picture, but our "sunrise" was awesome with the mysterious fog. Man, there was so much fog that we constantly had no idea of where we were, but it made exploring a lot more interesting. When the sun finally cleared up, we went to the top to take our version of the Machu Pichu pic...

The mountain behind the city is shaped like a face looking upward. Makes you wander about the Incas picking this place. Machu Pichu is grand, the whole place gives this feeling of power. At the time when the Spanish arrived, the size of the Inca Empire was greater than any on earth. Another fun fact. They were also intelligent in their conquering, they only "took out" the people in power when they invaded, the rest of the people were allowed to live as they had. By using these means they were able to take and use the best skills and knowledge from the conquered. Their masonry skills were without match. For instance, the building below is made out of perfectly cut stones, so precise that mortar or filler was not needed. Standing in front of these walls makes me wonder how long it took for each one to be carved and what if someone made a mistake after all that painstaking work, huh...

These places bring us back to a not so far past childhood, we run around, hide in the passageways, make silly poses for pics and let our imaginations run wild. Isn't it supposed to be like that? Of course Machu Pichu has a lot of rules, a lot. So throughout the day the whistle was blown at us many a time. But we didn't let that get us down. Another thrilling video coming up (probably not for the eyes of Matty's parents). All the risk to take a picture... watch

And here is Mr. Cool himself.

Here is my very corny video about Machu Pichu:

That's Matty's favorite pic above and the "Team" below.

Guys, I feel that I can't give Machu Pichu justice in the blog. We were there from ¨sunrise¨ to sundown and were pretty much, the last ones to leave. We forgot about the capitalism and the hundreds of other tourists who were trespassing on ¨our¨ site. It inspired so many wonders in our minds. Wow! It simply has to be seen.

Matty was cracking up in our hostal, I don't remember about what, but it must have been really funny:

Matty the giant amongst all Peruvians and beloved by the Peruanas stands in for a photo with them.
Oh look, who did we find crawling the back alleys of Aguas Calientes? Peruvian, rugged Softka.

We got back to Cuzco a couple of hours before Matty's flight took off. Had some breakfast at the airport and shared heartfelt good byes. We think Matty was changed. At least he took Peru by storm. Our hearts and our memories go out to you...

Machu Pichu was the last place on Matty's itinerary. At least, so he thought. He ended up being stuck in Lima for a couple of days longer because the airline bumped him off his flight. And he was sick. That sucks. But faithful readers don't worry. Matty is alive and well and now resides in the upscale part of Ridgewood. He also resumed working part time for the Devil a.k.a. J.T. O'Brien Plumbing and goes to DeVry for electrical engineering. Thumbs up to you Matty!