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The train from Cuzco enters the Urubamba valley near Ollantaytambo, where it becomes a narrow gorge, and follows the river past Machu Picchu to the end of the line at the small village of Quillabamba. The views are stupendous.
About 110 kms from Cuzco, the train stops at Puente Ruinas where visitors board busses to cross the Urubamba and climb the switchbacks, that are partly visible on this photo, going up the steep slope to Machu Picchu.
Arriving near the top, the view of the ruins comes as a complete surprise for nothing is visible from the valley floor. It is therefore no wonder that the presence of this Inca city, which was known by the local Quechua, remained hidden to white man until they revealed it to Hiram Bingham in 1911.
By the time it was discovered it had become completely overgrown with vegetation and it took several decades of careful excavation and restoration to bring it to its is present state.
The ridge-top settlement was ordered around a central plaza with religious and ceremonial areas to the west and residential and industrial sectors to the east. This structure has been identified as the "Principal Temple".
The quality of the stone work here ranks amongst the best of all Inca constructions as you can see below. That, and the extent of the ceremonial areas support to view that the community living here was principally oriented towards religious pursuits rather than mundane or military.
A small room behind the "Principal Temple" was given the name of "Sacristy" apparently because someone imagined that ceremonial vessels would have been kept in the finely crafted niches found there.
The magnificent setting of this stone altar facing west reflects the important role it had to play in the cult of the Sun, the principal Inca deity. Its Quechua name Intihuatana means "Hitching Post of the Sun". The shadow of the post cast by the last rays of the setting sun on the surrounding walls allowed the Inca priest-astronomers to predict the winter solstice and the return of the lengthening summer days.
This round structure, the only one in Machu Picchu, was apparently also involved in Sun Worship as it is called the Temple of the Sun.
This and the next photo show buildings of the so-called prison group. I would like be able to say why these buildings are called the prison group and what went on here but frankly, I don't have the slightest idea.
Anyway, this corner was interesting to visit and it certainly makes a dramatic photo.
Agricultural terraces on both sides of the ridge appear to have been sufficient to make the community self-sufficient in food.
The reconstructed thatched roof of this building gives us an idea of what the original Inca habitat could have been like. From what I've seen, most buildings were not open like this one but closed with relatively small windows and doors like the one you can see above on the right.
This picture shows the interesting detail of how the horizontal beams of the roof were tied with rope to projecting stones embedded in the upper masonry of these buildings.
After a week in the Cuzco area, I took a train for Puno on Lake Titicaca. I paid extra to go by tourist class which is safer because you're not assailed at every whistle stop by the local unemployed trying to sell you something or to grab some piece of your baggage. Sicuani was one such stop where I got out to stretch my legs.
The train took eleven hours to cover the 300 odd km from Cuzco to Puno but the scenery was great all the way and I met four interesting backpackers stopping in Puno like me. It was getting dark when we arrived so we stayed together to go looking for a place to sleep.
There is not much to see in Puno, this is the Cathedral on the other side of the Plaza de Armas.
Most tourists come to Puno to see an ethnological oddity, the Uros Amerindians who live on floating rafts made of tortora reeds out in Lake Titicaca. So did I, but what I saw was so depressing that I wish I had gone to visit the Colla ruins around Sillustani or the older pre-Huari Pukara Ruins.
This Uro gentleman is taking a motorboat load of us out to one of the "islands".
The reed rafts are so large that they can be called floating islands. The Uros were an ancient tribe that invented these islands centuries ago as a place to flee from extermination or enslavement by the more powerful Aymara speaking tribes surrounding the Lake.
The "islands" are constantly renewed by adding new tortora reeds on top as the old ones underneath become waterlogged and rot. With the passage of time the Uros have intermarried with the Aymara and have adopted their language.
There are now less than 300 of them still living on tortora islands. With the advent of tourism they have almost completely abandoned their traditional livelihood, which was fishing, and live essentially from handouts provided by curious visitors.
I felt shame for being one of those curious tourists who have been the cause of their present degradation.
My Peruvian adventure had come to an end with my head full of new insights about the mechanisms of civilisation building and my heart full of sorrow about the subsequent destruction of civilisations and degradation of cultures.
