Machu Picchu, Mysterium in the fog

Forgive me the somewhat pathetic headline. But it seems that reports about the ruins city in the Andes like to exaggerate, maybe to justify the enormous entrance fees. Nevertheless, Machu Picchu was an experience.

But let's start from the beginning...

My hiking day started at 5 o'clock in the morning, when I left my hostel in complete darkness. Motivated by my athletic achievements from the previous day, I shouldered my (way too full) backpack and set off into the night, past the numerous buses for willing guests and along the river. After about 15 minutes, the ascent began. Luckily, I was able to join a Hungarian-Slovak couple who had a flashlight.

We climbed the 400 meters in about 50 minutes on rocky steps. For comparison, the Empire State Building measures about 380 meters. My backpack was weighing me down and I was sweating. Luckily, I had dry spare clothes in my luggage and could leave them at the cloakroom. I looked into the understanding looks of the other hikers who also had saved the twelve dollars for the bus transfer.

Cloud forests and mists gradually revealed the incredible mountain panorama. After some snacks, I was ready for Machu Picchu.

I was assigned to a tour with four young men. After just a few minutes with our guide, I suspected that the guys were not exactly cultural travelers, to put it politely. With the attention span of a squirrel, they tested our tour guide. Either they were distracted, absent or secretly smoking, which was forbidden on the premises. Otherwise, they asked questions about topics that had already been discussed, or about trivial things, such as how the llamas got up the mountain or what the capital of Peru was.

I took it with eye-rolling and humor. Even while writing these lines, I had to smile warmly. The interests were just different.

The clouds and the numerous perspectives on nature, landscape and ruins were constantly changing. The explanations of our guide that Machu Picchu was founded and used as a magical place made perfect sense. The city could not sustain itself and relied on food and supplies from the surrounding area. This supported the theory that the Incas chose the location because of its proximity to the gods. Our guide also referred to the thousands of visitors daily as pilgrims.

Abandoned and unknown to the Spaniards - otherwise there would be churches here today - Machu Picchu was rediscovered in 1911 and has been developed for tourism since the 1950s.

The downside of the mystical atmosphere was the lack of photogenicity of the place. Even on the way back, I heard visitors complaining that the pictures were not 'instagrammable' and unfortunately fell short of expectations.

After a three-hour walk through the ruins, I started the descent, and then walked for another two hours in pouring rain along the train tracks to the agreed meeting point. I had a playlist of the most beautiful cover versions of the Fleetwood Mac classic 'Dreams' playing in my ears. Coffee, cake, burgers, and beer were an additional reward before I took the eight-hour bus ride back to Cusco with the other budget travelers at around 3 o'clock.

Conclusion:

Machu Picchu was an adventure and the overall tour with all its hardships gave the visit to the ruins an additional meaning. Especially since I was initially quite skeptical, I thank everyone who practically forced me to visit Machu Picchu.