"I never travel without my diary. one should always have something sensational to read on the train." (Oscar Wilde) (Entry 31, Day 13)

Thursday, 6 June, 2013; 4:24 PM; train to Ollantatambo

The details I can remember from yesterday are as follows:

1. There were some killer stairs, but it didn't take too long to get up them.
2. we had fried rice for lunch (Peru has a really cool variety of food, because Italians, Chinese, and others emigrated there)
3. I am very done with stairs.
4. the view from the Sun Temple is amazing - both of Machu Picchu and the mountains in general.
5. I do not want to climb Wayna Picchu.  Like, ever.  (Well, maybe another time when I've psychologically prepared myself for a really steep climb).
6. Machu Picchu's main coolness factor is that it's super huge.  Otherwise, I wasn't hugely impressed (that changed today).
7. We had a group dinner in Aguas Calientes.  It was a lot of fun.  Except for the stairs.

Today, we actually went to Machu Picchu.  IT WAS SO COOL.  There were two main parts: the urban and the farmers.  Surprisingly, only around 600-1000 people lived there.  Also surprisingly, the farming area couldn't support that many people, so they had to build some more terracing elsewhere, because they didn't want the nobles to starve.

The annoying thing is that we don't actually know the actual name of the city - Hiram Bingham called it Machu Picchu, meaning Old Mountain, after a nearby mountain of the same name.  Wayna Picchu ("Young Mountain") is the name of a nearby lookout tower on the mountain of the same name.  They couldn't have picked a better place - it's easily 1000 feet above the city, and the cliffs are very steep.  If Machu Picchu ever needed a place to make a last stand, it would be Wayna Picchu, because they could confuse people for hours as they tried to find the trail up (of course, if their enemies did make it up, the residents of Machu Picchu would be pretty much stuck in Wayna Picchu, but I guess that wasn't the point).  Nowadays, only four hundred people are allowed up each day - 200 at 7:00 AM and 200 at 10:00 AM.  If I ever get to climb Wayna, I'm not doing it after I hike the Inka trail - there are a lot of stairs up to Wayna, and I will never look at stairs the same way again.  I also refuse to climb any stairs for as long as I possibly can.  I can do uphills.  I cannot do stairs.

Interestingly, the Spanish never made it to Machu Picchu - there are no writings on it (and the writings of the Conquistadors are a big part of the information that we have now); the other indicator is that the Spanish would have left a cross and probably more destruction than what the jungle did to the city (the Spanish were still on the tail end of the Inquisition).

Unsurprisingly, Hiram Bingham found the city completely overgrown by forests - it's a very fertile area (sun! rain! mild weather!) and the natives had come to accept that there were random rocks in the area.  That was also why Bingham had trouble finding guides up to the city - the Andeans were all like, "dude, it's just a bit of terracing and some rocks.  Who cares?"

Of course, it took about a hundred years to build, and is one of the engineering wonders of the world.  It was built by the Ninth Inka, Panchatutaq, whose only claim to fame is commissioning Machu Picchu (that we know of).  He was one of 14 Inkas, who reigned for around 300 years (that's counting the time they were all tribal and still forming the empire).

(distracted.  Will write later.)