Day 353 Monday 24th March Machu Picchu to Ollyantaytambo (1,5 hours per train)

And then we got lucky, the luck was that without us knowing, going to the site on a Monday, out of season, at 5h30, is the best for avoiding the crowds. They have about 1,6 million visitors here per year, and at the hight of the season people sleep in the streets as there just is not enough hotel rooms and trains and busses. So we arrived at Machu Picchu at 6h00 ad was one of the 1st people to enter.

Below is our own Mr. Lucky-lucky :

Below is Tex at the entrance gate to the City, this is also where the ancient Inca Trail ended (or began.) The Inca empire stretched over many countries (as we know them today.) From Colombia down, to Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. The Inca Empire consisted of about 14 000 000 people, rued by the Inca King who stayed at MP (Machu Picchu.) I was blown away to learn from our guide Freddy that the Inca build little roads, well more like foot-paths throughout the Empire and the total length was about 30 000km, paved with stones. This made up the Inca trails, and today hikers can still hike in on a 4 day hike walking on some of the trails.

The communication throughout the Empire was mostly done by “Runners” who would start by chewing lots of Coco Leaves (which is used in the making of Cocaine,) and then they would run from their settlement or watch-tower to the next carrying a piece of rope. there would be knots tied in the rope, some double knots, some closer together, some knots far apart, and this would be like some kind of a Code that the senior officers or Heads of the Settlements would understand. This was done so that if they got captured they could not say what the message was they they were delivering.

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Below is me at the same spot, just better looking than Tex.

I was not too happy in the photo below as I had woken up very early, 4h15, to try and report the Fiber Outage at my house in Johannesburg, Mweb refused to help my lovely wife when she phoned as the wanted to speak to the account holder, bastards !!!!! I tried with the App and after 10 minutes speaking to their AI-Skaap I gave up, then I phoned my wife and told het to phone again on another number and then I sent her the OTP Pin they messaged to me. I was also not happy as I had walked very far, climbed many stairs only to find the ruins covered with fog/mist.

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But eventually it did clear a bit.

In the photo below is a tree, this tree was left by the people who cleared the site, (it took them 30 years to clear the Ruins,) just to show us how the ruins were over grown and why nobody from the Western World knew about this site until 1911 when a Prof from Yale came looking for traces of the Inca and some locals told him of places up the mountain they had seen which were man-made.

In the photo below you can see Terraces which was not just made to stabilize the soil (which was carried up from the valley and river below) but they also used these terraces for farming and planting their crops.

Below is what looks like two milling stones, but in fact they were filled with water and then the Shama’s (spiritual leaders like Priests and the Astrologers) would look up to the heavens and stars in the reflection in these two water filled stones (probably so they did not hurt their necks looking up.)

The position of Machu Picchu is between the Andes mountains and the Amazon Rain forrest. There are 334 types of Orchids Flowers that grows here.

Below you can see how busy the entrance side got at about 10h00:

The river below runs through cliffs and the mountain were they built this Citadel is very steep, but they got water from springs and they used aqueducts from the springs to get the water to the city.

The buildings were in different areas serving different purposes, some were for storing grain, others housed the Royal Family, others housed the 800 workers that worked at the Citadel and others housed 40 Virgins that had to make ceramic pottery. there was also another large building where the Kings many many Concubines stayed. The king had only one wife and her 1st child was the next King. but the many kids born from the Concubines were given positions of authority in the Empire. But all the buildings had thatched roofs and they used Lama Fat to waterproof the thatch, and if you look at the stones below, they tied the roof down onto these stones with rope so that the wind could not blow it away.

There is lots of unfinished buildings at MP, like below, they were busy building something and then something happened and they just stoped one day. More info to follow, so keep on reading, don’t get lazy. See how the area was overgrown;

And let me tell you about Lazy. If you killed someone, or broke the law your were killed, and being lazy was taken very serious as they believed being lazy was contagious. You had a choice of two ways to be killed, either you could be thrown into a dark room with venoumous snakes, or into a pit with Jaguars and eaten alive.

Below Pie is standing in front of the area in front of the Plaza where sacrifices were made. The Shama’s would usually demand a black Lama to be sacrificed on the stone behind Pie. But sometimes they sacrificed children, who were given a strong drink made of the roots of a tree that would give the kid an overdose as this concoction was also drank by the Shama’s (but in smaller quantity) to get them “high” so that they could more-better communicate with the spirits and the gods.

Below Freddy is showing Tex something.

The terraces started from the river below and slowly were build up to the top of the mountain as they believed the mountains were holy. But the terraces had little stone steps built into them so that they could climb from one terrace to the next;

Archeologist discovered around 45 000 atrifacts from this site. They also discovered that there were no woman and kids at this site (apart from the 40 virgins, the concubines and the Royal families women.) There were mostly 800 workers (men) that worked at the Citadel that stayed here.

The Incas were very spiritual people who worshiped the mountains, sea, river etc.) They also built things with so much planning. For example, the position of the Sun Temple was exactly at the spot where the sun would shine through the gap in the mountains (called a Sun Gate,) at the summer and winter solstice and the 1st rays of the sun would fall exactly on the main altar in the Sun Temple. In the area at the top of the next phot is where their main Sun Rail was which they used to know when to plant or when seasons where changing etc.

They think that it took the Incas about 100 years to build Machu Picchu. They think there were about

20 000 people working and building it. The workers all came for a 3 month period, on rotation every few years as a form of Tax.

There were no steel tools yet, so the rocks used in these building were shaped by making a big fire around a big rock, and when the rock was very hot they would pour lots of water onto the rock and this would cause it to crack and split in pieces, These smaller pieces were then shaped using other rocks.

If you remember from one of my last Blogs of the previous Leg, Leg 20, you will remember that the Incas were simply the last of the tribes that started around 1000 years before the birth of Christ. They went by many other names and one tribe would conquer the next and then they would be defeated in battle and eventually when the Spanish arrived in the 15 hundreds they found the Inca and their Empire.

But the big question is what happened to this civilization? It is a know fact that the Spanish brought with them diseases like Small Pocks and Flu and that the Incas had no resistance to these diseases and that most died of these diseases. But this theory is not believed by all. As you can see in the photo below, they were still busy moving this stone on a roller-rock the one day and then just stopped.

So it is now widely believed that the Spanish were simply following the Inca Trails, from village to village, killing the people, stealing their gold and silver that were used for ceremonies in their temples. It is believed that the king decided to vacate MP and scatter into the mountains for a while, thereby breaking-up their Civilization to avoid the onslaught of the plundering Spanish. It is also believed that the trails leading to Machu Picchu were removed or hidden and that is why the Spanish never found MP and why for 100’s of years it was over grown and hidden from the world.

After about 4 years the Incas re-grouped and then all of them got together and stood up against the Spanish and defeated them eventually, after the Spaniards had looted and stole and killed enough and moved on. This “fight” continues today on the Chess Boards :

After our time at MP we took the bus back and spend some time in the town. Drank a beer or two and spoke about how nice it was going to be to have shower, put onsite clean underpants and clothes and be re-united with our bikes and clothing. We wandered through the market and bought little presentes for our wives and daughters. Well, not all of did and they will see the Dog Box when they return home. 😅

Then we jumped on our train and sat in the normal tourist class and not in this 1st class carriage.

Tomorrow we have a short day in the saddle to Cusco.

luv Ja All, madly

Fleisch