Inca Trail to Machu Picchu “You Have Reached Your Destination” – Day Four

I think everyone who hikes the Inca Trail has a nagging thought they need to arrive at the Sun Gate (Intipunku) before first light. I’m not quite picturing Indiana Jones standing in front of the stone pillars, holding the “Staff of Inti” (twin to the “Staff of Ra”), with a crystal at its center collecting the rays into a laser-like beam that creeps towards the city and illuminates the secret hiding spot for a sacred artifact. This would be more appropriate for the Sun Temple on a solstice. But I imagined each morning with a singular moment where the sun’s rays clear the gate and awake the ruins in a magical light.

We skipped breakfast and “slept in” until 4 am. We needed to clear out of camp early enough for the porters to catch their train, but the final checkpoint wouldn’t open for another hour and a half. This was probably a safety measure. Darkness, a perilous rocky trail with deadly drop-offs, and people pushing past each other by the limited lumens of their headlamps is not a good combination … people have died. Controlling how early people can start, if nothing else, ensures some ambient light will soon follow. But it doesn’t do anything for impatience … a queue had already formed.

I avoid Black Friday like the plague, and hate its trend toward earlier and earlier. In this way, I’m glad the gate doesn’t open until 0530 (okay, maybe I’d wish for 0500). People will line up to be in the first wave no matter what time the gate opens, convinced they’ll miss something if they don’t. This gives them a slight head start through a tight bottleneck, followed by a lot of passing or being passed, until the flow finally resumes a natural state for the remainder of the three miles. So unless your hiking speed is on the very front end of the bell curve, waiting early at the start gate is probably diminishing returns. If there was an exact time-specific phenomenon to miss, maybe those extra few minutes would make all the difference. As it was, our group let the trample zone clear. We weren’t going to sacrifice enjoyment of the journey by rushing to its destination.

Over the last several days, several of us had asked to try on a porter pack. The team was always too clockwork, in place and unpacked before we got to a site, packing up after we left. We finally had a brief opportunity this morning, while the last of our porters waited for someone to validate the campsite cleanliness and clear him to leave. Given how much the packs lost weight as contents transferred to our bellies, it still seemed plenty large. It looked extremely awkward on Rob, in part due to his foot-and-a-half excess height. The fit was much closer to my 5’2” (and I felt tall).

Instead of lining up at the checkpoint not far beyond camp, we waited at a cement structure at its edge. Some time ago, an enterprising businessperson built a lavish club here for tourists on their way to Machu Picchu. Now just a concrete shell, I tried to imagine its heyday. Guessing the Hiram Bingham train targets the same clientele, I want to believe this club was similar in opulence and atmosphere, reminiscent of so many in our US National Parks since lost to fire, permanently fixed in a bygone era. This site was of modern concrete construction. Too heavy for the soil, it sank unevenly. Thankfully, the ancient stone structures built by the Incans all around still stand.

The moon was full, surrounded in a haze that gave it the appearance of a creepy eye. It didn’t light the landscape as well as hoped, but I had a Gorillapod (small flexible tripod) and time, so I explored my camera’s manual exposure settings. The tent in the first picture was packed and on its way down the hill five minutes after the picture was taken, leaving only the light on the corner of the old club and headlamps to inject light pollution. The mountains became progressively more distinct as light rounded the earth.

Having recently re-read “Fingerprints of the Gods”, at least the parts pertaining to the Inca Empire, I had an urge to photograph the Belt of Orion. For those who haven’t read the book, its premise is that many of these ancient civilizations are a lot older than we think, with their stone monuments sharing astral alignments to the Belt of Orion as it appeared 10,000 years ago. It hypothesizes some interconnectedness, in particular between ancient Incan and Egyptian cultures, observing similarities in stonework, and highlighting discoveries like Lake Titicaca reed boats in tombs of pharaohs. While most sacred sites in the Cusco vicinity seem more anchored to the sun, further south, the Lines of Nazca are thought to represent constellations and include a detailed study on the changing relation to Orion. Whether or not the Incan civilization aligned monuments to Orion, they were monitoring the night skies for differing visibilities of constellations–which has since been correlated to upper level moisture, a reasonably good forecast of El Nino effects and seasonal rains.

Still dark, we walked a few minutes to the last checkpoint. In the short period we waited, a tiny amount of sunlight joined us, enough we could turn off our headlamps. We were now on the final leg to Intipunku, the Sun Gate, which would be our entrance to Machu Picchu.

Minutes into our journey, we caught glimpses through trees of mist rising off the Urubamba River. We eventually came to a place we had a clear view as it curled around a mountain. It’s not difficult to see why the Incans found this area sacred. It’s mesmerizing.

Descending and then climbing more ancient stairs, we had a brief respite before our final push to the Sun Gate.

Intipunku, one of the gates the Incans used to control access to the city, looked down on Machu Picchu, which was still about an hour’s walk away. From this vantage point, in the early morning sun, Machu Picchu looked like 3D modeling by layer, a stack of cardboard cutouts … almost a fake addition to the hillside. The resort hotel closest to the site was also visible … as an eyesore we all tried to cut out of our pictures. And, you can see the switchbacks and imagine a terrifying bus ride down to Aguas Calientes.

There was a small set of ruins with a burial site on the way down the trail to Machu Picchu. When Hiram Bingham “discovered” Machu Picchu in 1911, or really just made it public, it was heavily overgrown. Whether you categorize him archeologist or treasure hunter, his expedition was probably more about uncovering and collecting as much as possible in a short time than it was archeological. Paying people for bones and artifacts fills crates faster, but at the expense of the methodology that documents every possible detail of the find. Hiram Bingham’s “archeology” was probably more like Indiana Jones (minus Hovitos and Nazis), the adventure that makes kids interested in archeology until they realize the actual discipline is probably more like brushing away dirt from a tiny plot of earth for days and weeks on end. Regardless, what Hiram Bingham discovered, and several subsequent discoveries, was the preponderance of the remains at Machu Picchu were female. While there is some debate many of these were misidentified, it all adds to the mystery of Machu Picchu’s purpose.

An academic course I listened to before this trip joked that Machu Picchu seemed like a “Playboy Mansion” for the Inca Emperor. Maybe this was said at least partially in jest … but when I mentioned it to Juan, he said the Ninth Inca was a somewhat notorious playboy …

As we progressed closer, Machu Picchu still seemed unreal, more like a fake backdrop for a studio photo shoot. Maybe it’s the angle of the walkway and the perfect ledge, looking over a too-picture-perfect scene for reality. I still look at the group picture and think it looks like something a cruise ship takes against a green screen and replaces with an idealized background. It is real though. The tall peak behind Machu Picchu, by the way, is Huayna Picchu … we would be climbing it tomorrow.

Other groups actually waited as Juan snapped pictures with all six of our cameras before rushing us off to a slightly less congested spot. In the seconds before everyone else retrieved their cameras, I finally got a picture of “Juan the Camera Tree”. An action photo would be better, but this will have to do.

The site was already congested with people, so we took a break first, to check our bags at the main entrance area (not required unless they’re above a certain size, but less cumbersome in a crowd), and use the pay toilets … clean, with both seats and paper! I was bemused they gave me a receipt as I paid to enter … I still can’t figure out a purpose for this.

Re-entering the site, we walked along one of many agricultural terraces. These were extensive, blending perfectly into the hillside, with several matching storehouses behind them. Whether they were truly agricultural or served a dual (or sole) purpose of stabilizing the soil and hillside, they had extensive drainage features built in. People who’ve looked deeper say each terrace has chipped rock at the bottom, gravel, progressively smaller bits, up to topsoil. If it hadn’t been engineered with drainage in mind, the site probably would have succumbed to landslide by now.

Notice the guy on the ladder. He’s part of a small army of workers battling lichens. Using what looks like small wood nubs and other soft implements, they tediously scrape and scour the site, rock by rock, removing these organisms. If I were doing this job, I’d finally be caught up on my audible.com queue.

The site also has several fountains, pulling water from a nearby spring to the urban parts of the site. The most elaborate of these is a tiered series of “baths”. It’s not known if they were ever used this way, or were decorative, religious, or just a place to fill water vessels. The smoothed perfection and fit of the stones implies some sacred significance, but it could be multi-purposed. I’ve heard the hydraulics are all still functional today, even after centuries of abandonment before being re-discovered and restored, and that reduced/nonexistent flows are due to man-made diversion (preservation?).

Not far from here was the Temple of the Sun, or Torreon, a three-level construct some say merges the three worlds, condor, puma, and snake (above world, present world, and underworld). The top level had windows, at least one of which aligned to the winter (June) solstice, allowing light to bisect an altar on the middle level. Beneath this was a massive boulder, intricately carved into a room representing the underworld, sometimes called the royal tomb. I’m unsure if there were actually any remains found here or if this was an assumed purpose.

From the Temple of the Sun, I looked back at the Intipunku entrance to the city, and thought about another “sun” feature we hadn’t seen yet … the Intihuatana, or Hitching Post of the Sun. I didn’t fully grasp whether these were meant to be aligned together in some way in concert with the sun, or were all independent features. I had thought the Sun Gate looked like a targeting site, so thought it must align to a pillar or window in the city. I’ll confess my ignorance, I’m still not sure there’s any connection.

This area is prone to earthquakes, making lasting construction a challenge. That the site survives today is testament to the Inca engineers and builders. Mortar might crumble, whereas the stones, perfectly fit, provide enough flex to survive the earth’s vibrations. In some of the most impressive and exacting stonework, the walls are angled, similar to doorways, to provide more structural stability. Many of the corners use L-shaped blocks of varying lengths, preventing weak seams. And this was all done, as far as we know, with simple tools and skilled labor.

As a complete aside, looking at these pictures made me think about Legos, and how the blocks I grew up with were standard sizes with squared sides. Curious if the fancy new Legos had a Machu Picchu kit with puzzle piece one-of-a-kind and/or non-standard angled blocks, I did a google search. I found something better: http://www.theupcoming.co.uk/2012/06/27/peru-comes-to-covent-garden-an-interview-with-ben-fogle-as-he-recreates-machu-picchu-with-lego/

I think how specialized we’ve become as a society, allowing us to develop ever more complex machines and harness new energy sources, but how our average person may struggle to install crown molding, and certainly couldn’t tell it was a solstice without the aid of a calendar and/or clock. The Inca Empire would have needed specialists … engineers, masons, astronomers, etc., to achieve what it did in building these lasting monuments.

I consider how fragile this specialization makes us, how reliant we are on others to provide basic things we need to survive, and how vulnerable this makes us to catastrophe. No longer are we our own self-sufficient units … we could never achieve what we have if we all grew our own food, produced our own electricity, or built our own computers completely from scratch. Arguably, we’d probably have a hard time obtaining the raw materials to make a pencil and paper. So all this specialization requires a massive logistical network, to move food, gas, electricity, etc. from where it’s produced to where it’s needed, or people will starve, freeze, and die, or at a minimum, lose their livelihoods. Take any natural disaster and disrupt this flow, it doesn’t take long to see just how easily it can collapse.

How had this thriving empire come to an end? A perfect storm of bad things happened in a few short years. The Spaniards brought smallpox to the New World, which spread rapidly and decimated the population. During this epidemic, the emperor and his designated heir both died, very possibly from smallpox. This left the throne contested and the empire divided, and kicked off a bloody civil war. Pizarro was, in theory, in the Americas to support the Spanish Crown in converting the New World to Catholicism. After a series of alliances and betrayals worthy of an HBO series, he maneuvered his purpose to conquest. Exploiting the civil war, he ambushed the Inca ruler who had recently captured the other, and while allowing him to rule from captivity, made him fear they would make a deal with the other … thus setting a purge in motion. After extorting a heavy ransom of gold and silver from the remaining emperor, and enjoying safe passage for a few months, Pizarro trumped up charges and executed him. Playing factions from the civil war, he continued looting treasures, then placated the Spanish Crown with his plunder, and installed puppet emperors to maintain control. The empire was in complete turmoil, with everyone with any power to pull it back together now dead. Much of the remaining population, feeling abandoned by their Gods, decided to convert. Unbeknownst to everyone, smallpox spread further through contact with the baptismal water.

Add to this the destruction of libraries and purge of those who could write/read. This is essentially what happened when the Spanish burned all the quipus and executed the people who could read them (quipus were the Incan record-keeping system; it used knotted threads instead of written language). Our windows into the height of the Incan Empire are … the surviving quipus that nobody can read, oral histories from the estimated third to tenth of the population not killed by disease or war, accounts of early colonialists, artifacts, and monuments in stone that were too big or too remote to repurpose. The most important centers of civilization attracted the most attention and destruction. If this were to happen across the world today, what would an explorer 500 years from now find? Probably just a fraction of what’s here now, and they wouldn’t make sense of a lot of it.

Thankfully the conquistadors never found Machu Picchu, making it extremely valuable as a relatively intact cultural site. We may never know for sure know how or why it was built, but we can marvel at its engineering, precise masonry, and celestial alignments.

A short detour from the Temple of the Sun on the way toward the Sacred Plaza, we stopped at a quarry that seemed both completely out of place and strangely harmonious at the same time. Compared to the exacting manufactured order of the city, it seemed a peacefully natural rock garden. There were stones in various stages of modification, possibly providing some insights to how these ancient people sculpted them.

Probably the most picturesque feature of the Sacred Plaza is the “Temple of the Three Windows”, but the scene was obscured by a crew making repairs or scraping lichens. At 90 degrees counterclockwise were the remains of “The Principle Temple”. One corner was in disrepair, either the result of a tree root or the ground sinking. A chinchilla made good use of an unplanned access point behind one of the alcoves.

I may not be the right person to cast the first stone, because I do take pictures of myself to remember and validate I was there … but I know nobody really needs to see me at every angle of every monument I’ve ever in my lifetime visited. This is what annoys me about selfies. Not the occasional snap, the people who ignore everything about the site they’re visiting and those around them to get an (approaching) infinite number of pictures of themselves in every conceivable pose at every place they visit. Why go, if it’s all task coverage and narcissistic pics of yourself that nobody wants to see? So, I was initially amused at the colorful selfie triplets, and then annoyed.

While they distracted themselves taking pictures in niche windows on their way to the Intihuatana (in their defense, this was at least a good picture), we passed them, hoping to never see them again.

Intihuatana, or the “Hitching Post of the Sun”, is one of the “must see” features of Machu Picchu, but I’m not sure most of us understand why. It’s beautifully carved, but beyond the gnomon (sticking up part that casts the shadow), I’m not really sure what it was meant to do. Some guidebooks say it’s an indicator of the solstice, others say equinox, some say it’s a solar observatory. Intihuatanas existed throughout the empire, at all temples to the sun. Midday on an equinox, the sun is directly overhead and casts no shadow. Whether you picture a lifeline connecting the post to a fleeting sun to reel it back in, or anchoring it directly overhead, it’s not hard to imagine its usefulness in sun ceremonies.

A site’s Intihuatana is somehow linked to its spirit or deities; breaking one has potentially large consequences. This site’s was roped off, with a guard to stop anyone who tried to reach over and touch it. The conquistadors and/or those on a mission to convert the Incans destroyed most of these “heathen” objects across the empire. This Intihuatana had survived the Spanish but was recently damaged during the filming of a beer commercial, causing an expected level of outrage. I’ll assume, since the physical damage was a small chip, that the spiritual damage to the site is just a scar.

On the far side of the site, as we neared Huayna Picchu, was a large flat rock facing a mountain with a very similar shape behind it. It’s believed this is the rock’s natural shape. The Incans noticed its similar profile to a sacred apu (mountain spirit) and this “Sacred Rock” was moved to this location.

The “return” route was on the other side of a large grassy field from the way we’d come in, flip-flopping perspectives from insider to outside observer. The terraces leading down to the plaza area incorporated rocks of all shapes and sizes, many of these seemed to work with their natural contours at the expense of fitting as snugly. From this further distance, the difference between “common” and “sacred” stonework was a lot more obvious. The “Temple of Three Windows” stands out for its smooth, polished architecture.

Juan said at one time there was a monolith stone in the main plaza, but during a period of high terrorist threat it was removed so the site could be used as a helicopter landing pad. I tried to google search this, with mixed results. It may have been removed once for the King and Queen of Spain to land via helicopter, but was put back into position afterwards. It was removed again about a decade later during a delegation of Latin American leaders, which is, I assume, where the terrorist threat/target comes in. The stone is not there now, whether moved to a different location or irreparably broken and buried on site, sources differ.

As we walked through the urban district back toward more sacred areas, I noticed some differences in the quality of stonework at different heights in the wall. It looks like the lower part of the wall was completed by one set of craftsmen, and the upper part with lower quality, as if there was a lengthy interruption and those who resumed the effort didn’t have the same skills. This might fit with Graham Hancock’s “Fingerprints of the Gods” theories. Or it could just be the lower layers are much more structurally important, so more time was spent perfecting them.

The “Temple of the Condor” like the “Temple of the Sun” incorporated a large boulder in situ, carving and adding to transform it into a sacred bird in flight. I really needed a fisheye lens here, I couldn’t get a good angle on it. The sculpt on the ground is the head and neck, with the boulder forming the wings.

Looking back towards Huayna Picchu, you can see how terracing was vital to develop this site. Without modification, there would be very few flat surfaces on which to build. Looking at much of the natural grade, and considering the weight of the building materials, gravity would have pulled it into the Urubamba River long before now.

Returning towards the eastern agricultural terraces is a good angle to see their size. The Machu Picchu site is believed to have housed no more than 1000 people. It’s thought these terraces were expansive enough to feed four times this many.

Before leaving Machu Picchu for the day, Juan said a seismic or some other kind of non-invasive underground survey had revealed some undiscovered chambers. So far, this has gone no further. I don’t know that google is a credible way to “find out more”, but my search turned up a French explorer that investigated what he thought was a sealed entrance. Using electromagnetic conductivity, he believes he found an underground room, and submitted a request to investigate further. Amidst controversy on his credibility and accusations of being a tomb robber, the request seems to have been denied. Regardless, this excites my imagination with possibilities … maybe an unknown gold artifact of great importance not melted down by Pizarro, or a “Rosetta Stone” of quipus. And you know with all this Indiana Jones talk, there have to be snakes.

As we exited the site, we had to decide whether to take the bus down to Aguas Calientes, or hike. All along we had planned to hike, but at this point the want of a hot shower and lunch won out. Distracted by talking the entire way down, I didn’t really notice how precariously close to the edge the bus got rounding the tight switchbacks, or the steepness of the hiking trail regularly intersecting the road. The bus pulled over just past the railroad tracks, next to the Urubamba River and a huge shopping consortium. Men pushed carts of bricks, propane, luggage, you-name-it, up a long hill. The town is all tourist … hotels, restaurants, and shopping. Entirely pedestrian, it has its charms.

Fast forward past a hot shower, lunch, a successful quest for postcards and stamps, a wander through the ridiculously large tourist shopping area, we were rejoined with the day-hikers, drinking a free Pisco Chilcano in the loft of the Waman hotel. Their group had just completed the Machu Picchu hike, starting from a different location later in the day. True gourmands, they already had a place in mind for dinner. A great meal in a cozy Italian restaurant with a huge fire pit at the center, and my nice soft bed called my name.