Sacred sites of the Incas' Machu Picchu

FEW things bring home the majesty, mystery and mundanity of the lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, like the Throne Room.

In this extraordinary abandoned city, hidden in the jungle of the Andes and missed by the maurauding Spanish conquistadors, the remains of complex agricultural terraces, workers' huts, nobles' homes, sacred temples and scientific instruments survive.

So, too, does an important stone home which must have been the seat of the high priest, or possibly the Inca himself. After all, it is the only one with an indoor toilet.

It is sights such as this – a dunny – and of actually touching the stones so carefully crafted by the people of the Inca, that takes Machu Picchu out of a mythical postcard image and cements it as a real place where people lived, worked, loved and died.

To get to Machu Picchu in Peru you have choices: hike the Inca Trail for about 30 days from the nearest major city, Cusco; hike it for about four days from a closer drop-off point; or take the train.

Travelling with a bunch of active 50-something-year-olds as part of a wider Bunnik Tour (motto: Not Too Young & Not Too Old), we happily took the train.

This is an adventure in itself. To scale the Andes from Cusco the train first rises up a series of zig-zags, then cruises down the Incas' Sacred Valley and into ravines flanked by massive snowcapped mountains.

The Perurail Vistadome carriages have windows in the ceiling to take in the wild views, as well as table service for the four-hour trip. Very civilised.

The train arrived at Aguas Calientes, a town which initially seemed to be one huge market aimed at tourists but actually has a nice village square and plenty of cafes.

Our Bunnik crew was booked into the Inkaterra Hotel, a resort spread over lush gardens with guided nature walks to show off the region's 33 species of hummingbird and 373 species of orchids.

Rain had set in, so the decision was made to explore the village for the afternoon and leave Machu Picchu until early the next morning. It was a wise move. Next day we were ready to go at 6.30am and the day was dry, if cloudy.

A constant stream of buses snake their way up the mountain's hairpin road, ferrying tourists to Machu Picchu each day. Reaching the entrance is a jaw-dropping moment.

Shrouded in clouds, the lost city looms with an ethereal presence.

Dating from about 1450AD, it had only about a century of magnificence before being abandoned ahead of the brutal Spanish invasion.

The Spanish never found it and it was forgotten, although this is the Andes, a humid jungle territory where things are swiftly swallowed up by nature.

It is also on an incredibly remote, hard-to-reach mountainside.

American researcher Hiram Bingham discovered it in 1911. The Peruvian Government had put in a new road nearby and a native mentioned the ruins, where peasants were living to avoid taxes.

Bingham saw the ruins and was astonished. To see it today, reclaimed from the jungle, is equally astounding.

Row upon row of crop terraces march down the steep mountainside, held up by stone retaining walls.

About 216 houses have been identified, thatch roofs long gone but stones still solid, as are public buildings and temples.

The main temple to the sun is a tribute to the Inca civilisation's extraordinary stonecraft. Perfectly polished stones, some huge, fit together so exactly no mortar is needed and no gaps are visible. One huge boulder has no fewer than 36 angles, with each neighbouring stone cut to join perfectly.

In one room, alcoves appear designed to amplify sound; tourists who stick their heads in and hum are rewarded with an echo wave.

As you wander around in awe, it becomes easy to visualise an industrious, intricate community of some 1000 people going about their lives, centred on the worship of the sun.

After all, the sun was central to their agricultural society. After taking in the ruins, many visitors opt for the hour-long climb to the Sun Gate, the gap in a nearby mountain where the first rays of the morning sun shone down on the sun temple.

This is the aspect where the most famous photos of Machu Picchu are taken, showing the lost city against the backdrop of another dramatic mountain peak. But arriving early gave us another choice. Authorities allow 400 people a day to climb the soaring neighbouring peak seen in those photos, Wayna Picchu. (Machu Picchu means old mountain, Wayna Picchu means young mountain.)

Five of us from the Bunnik group put our hands up to reserve places, ready to tackle both the steep climb and the prospect of vertigo at the top.

Steep it was: a punishing zig-zag with cables to help haul yourself up as amazing views unfold.

When finally at the top you come to yet more Incan ruins, giving you even more reason to appreciate their ingenuity and physical strength.

The one woman among our climbers, Denise Bradley, became the first Bunnik female tourist to conquer Wayna Picchu.

At the top, the temptation to bellow out a "Coo-ee" was too great. It echoed though the mountains and was dutifully replied to by some other Aussie traveller.

After a full morning wandering around Machu Picchu, then an hour's solid climb up Wayna Picchu and an hour to climb back down, it was pretty easy to settle back into the comfy Vistadome carriage for the train journey back to Cusco.

To round off a supremely memorable day, Perurail staff put on some unexpected entertainment.

First, some traditional dancing with a costumed performer, then our cheerful cabin attendants put on a classy fashion show set to boppy music showing the latest in garments made from soft alpaca wool.

Truly, an amazing two-day odyssey that will live on in the memory banks long after the aches and pains of scaling Wayna Picchu are forgotten.

The writer travelled courtesy of Bunnik Tours and Lan Chile.

resource: http://www.news.com.au/