Travel Planning Failures

After Puno, we headed to Cusco to see the Inca ruins. Very quickly I learned where travel planning breaks down: (1) If your Lonely Planet is two years old; (2) If there are natural disasters that don’t hit the papers for 5 days; and (3) If the weather is just plain foul for several days on end.

Cusco didn’t appeal to me much at all, so the same day we arrived, we headed off to Ollantaytambo and caught the train for Aguas Calientes to see Machu Picchu the next day. We woke up early and were in line for the bus to Machu Picchu at 5:20, arriving at the sight just before 6 am. Our plan was to head quickly up to Wayna Picchu, a steep mountain next to the ruins, since our trusty guide book informed us that only 400 people are let in per day—200 at 7 am and 200 at 10 am. Planning Fail: As of January 2012, you have to buy Wayna Picchu entrance tickets in advance, at the same time you buy your Machu Picchu entrance ticket. The next task in our plan was to head over to Cerro Picchu, a hike to a viewpoint on the other side of the sight that did not require waiting in line. Planning Fail: As of January 2012, you also have to buy entrance tickets for Cerro Picchu in advance.

Being the careful planner I am, I was hit pretty hard by my botches in planning for the most iconic destination in Peru. The day was looking pretty gloomy, but then, a surprise advantage of arriving at Machu Picchu before all the day trippers presented itself: THE LLAMAS!!!! There are a number of llamas roaming around Machu Picchu in part to amuse tourists and in part to mow the lawn. Most of the day, they hang out in this one part of the ruins where tourists can’t get too close to them, but before the chaos, they roam freely around on the footpaths and in and out of structures. For about 45 minutes, Cole put up with me following the llamas around, which of course cheered me right up.

Our Machu Picchu guide

From there we decided to make the best of it and started the ruins over to see things in order so we could read about them (and eavesdrop on tour groups) as we went along. Then, we went up to the top near the entrance to try to get one of the postcard shots of the whole Machu Picchu site. Planning Fail: This only works when there is some semblance of sunlight—we had heavy cloud cover. But instead of getting down about this one (because really, what can you do about the weather?), I made a game of it and we asked a ton of people at all slightly different spots to take pictures for us until we got one where you can kind of sort of see the ruins.

Machu Picchu!

Despite the ups and downs of the day, I’ll look back at Machu Picchu fondly. Like the Great Wall of China, it’s one of those sites that you see tons of pictures of before you arrive, but when you get there it’s still really impressive. We went to the Machu Picchu museum afterwards, which I think really helped me appreciate the site. My favorite things about Machu Picchu were:

• The structural engineering prowess of the Incas. I was particularly amazed by the way they built around existing boulders and by the religious buildings made from large carved blocks instead of the typical smallish stones.

• The agricultural terraces, which I’m used to seeing around now, but in the museum we learned that the Incas were different because instead of cutting the terraces into the hills, the Incas built the terraces up on top of the hill foundation!

• The cool astronomical things, like the instrument the Incas had designed to help track the movements of the sun and plan around solstices. I think it’s pretty amazing that modern astronomers still can’t figure out exactly how it works.

• The llamas, obviously, especially the baby one.

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After Machu Picchu, our plan was to head to a much less frequented Inca ruin, Choquequirau. The ruins are a four to five day hike from a town about three hours from Cusco, and it is a little difficult to plan for before you arrive in Cachora, but in my mind anything that gets rave reviews from William Loopesko is worth trying. We checked with the tourism office in Aguas Callientes to make sure there were no new 2012 permits required, and headed off to Cachora. Planning fail: News travels slowly in rural Peru, and when we arrived in Cachora that night, we learned there had been a huge landslide two days ago that took out a key section of the trail. (The landslide eventually hit the papers, but not until five days after the fact.)

This discovery put us in a bit of a pickle, because we had already bought airline tickets for the next leg of our journey based on a five-day trek. After a night’s rest, some rapid brainstorming, a quick Elena breakdown, and some planner pinch hitting by Cole, we settled on what would turn out to be an awesome backup plan: one day of horseback riding in Cachora (in the rain, still, but a nice chance of pace), up to a spot where you could see the landslide (and the ruins when there is sun), then off to Huaraz to hike in the Andes until our flight.

The landslide that blocked our way

My mule named mula (left) and Cole's horse named caballo (right)