It's real! It's stupendous! We actually stood there and took these pictures! Visiting Machu Picchu was an experience of a lifetime. The pictures cannot do it justice! It is so much more than the sum of its parts! Let me catch my breath and I'll give you the details on how a visit to Machu Picchu proceeds.

There are two ways to approach Machu Picchu: If you are young and in good physical condition, you spend four days hiking the Inca Trail with a guide. You go through three passes at around 13,000 feet. On the fourth morning you arrive at the gate to the Inca's domain feeling like one of the Indians of yore.

On the other hand, if you are not so young and fit and really appreciate creature comforts, you take a four hour train ride down from Cuzco along the Urubamba Valley, then an exciting bus ride up a winding, single lane, dirt road where there are pull offs for vehicles to pass each other and stop off at the hotel to use the rest rooms before venturing out onto the site.

	Needless to say, we took the train ride! The first hour or so was spent negotiating a series of switchbacks to get up out of the Cuzco plateau. Over the next three hours the vegetation changes from temperate highlands to lush jungle.
	From a maximum elevation of 12,000 feet the train descends through a series of broad agricultural valleys and narrow ravines until it reaches Aguas Calliente at 6,200 feet. The tracks used to go on further to Quillabamba, but it washed away a couple of years ago, and they are saving up the money to repair it.
	Aguas Caliente was named because of the hot springs nearby. Today it has one industry: tourism. Visitors get off the train here, walk the length of the town, and load onto busses to take them up the mountain to Machu Picchu.
	The road has thirteen switchbacks, and is mostly one lane even though the fleet of busses is continuously running up and down the mountain. At 7,700 ft. Machu Picchu is over 1,500 feet above the rivers flowing around its base.

The busses unload at a hotel built just down slope from Machu Picchu. It is not visible from the ruins proper, but it is where we find such creature comforts as rest rooms and lunch. Before we start wandering around let's take a look at a map of the site.

Red is walls, green is fields. Key: Trail to Huayna Picchu Moon temple Central square Residential area Workshops Temple of the Condor Boundary between residential and agriculture  fields Restored houses (near Hotel) "Funeral" stone Graves Watchman's house Original entrance to the estate Palace Temple of the Sun Quarry? Priest's house House of three windows Temple "Hitching Post of the Sun"

Machu Picchu lay under a cover of vegetation until 1911 when professor Hiram Bingham III of Yale University was led to it by a local farmer (Agustin Lizarraga) who was using some of its agricultural terraces and had sold some artifacts he discovered to local collectors. It was never known to the conquistadors, and may even have been abandoned before the arrival of Pizzaro. Bingham initially thought that he had found the lost city of Vilcabamba, the last refuge of Tupac Amaru, the last Inca, but current thought is that it was Inca Patchacuti's country estate.

We entered by the restored houses on the east side, and walked down to the Temple of the Condor, up to the temple of the Sun, up to the "Hitching post of the sun" then across and even further up to the Watchman's house.

		These three restored houses in the middle of the agricultural sector were our gateway to Machu Picchu. We walked across the terrace, through the houses, and were greeted by the sight of the rest of the ruins.
		The sharp peaks guarding the estate, the low clouds veiling them, The walls and windows, the open plazas and terraces, this was the moment for which we had traveled so far. Notice the walking stick: it was very, very nice to have (no handrails)! But unless yours has a rubber tip, it will be confiscated.
		Sheer cliffs huddle around as if to protect one of their own. Far below the Urubamba rushes to its rendezvous with the Amazon. The clouds spread a wispy veil over the tops of the peaks.
		And there are the remains of the buildings that were the private retreat of the Inca and his court.

A quick word about the location of Machu Picchu is in order. There are three peaks surrounding the estate: to the North is Huayna Picchu (the Young Mountain) which is always seen in the pictures, standing guard over the ruins. To the south is Machu Picchu (the Ancient Mountain). The buildings are in a saddle between these two mountains. To the east, across the river, is Putucusi (which means "Belly of the World". Inca altars have been found at the top of each of these sacred mountains.

	The stylized condor has a carved head and lighter stone representing the ruff. This cave was probably used as a mausoleum.
		If you look carefully at the way the walls are built you can see the differences in importance of the structures. Note the even, level blocks of the wall of the Temple of the Sun which gives way to wavier courses in the wall of the "Priest's House" next door to it. Retaining walls are even more random.
		At the highest point of the residential section is a large stone called Intiwatana or the "hitching Post of the Sun". The corner of the large block points due north, and the smaller section can be used to determine the solstices. Mysteriously another corner points towards magnetic north even though we have no indication that the Incas had compasses.
		These are the insides of the two main gates to the estate. They could be closed by placing a large plank door over them, putting bars across the door, and lashing the bar to the niche alongside the door. One door also has a ring over it for a vertical bar.
		The roofs were held on by lashing them to posts that stick out of the gables. The spring that feeds the water supply is still running.
		The agricultural terraces cascading down both sides of the mountain have jungle growing conditions at the bottom, and a cloud forest at the top as well as everything in between, Any crop known to the Incas can be grown here.