ON THE BUCKET LIST: MACHU PICCHU

The Northern Lights, the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Great Barrier Reef … what’s on your bucket list?
Chances are the famous Peruvian citadel of Machu Picchu is on there, one of the modern-day “Seven Wonders of the World” which we can still actually visit, according to an internet poll.

Built in an extraordinarily stunning location in the middle of a tropical mountain forest in the Upper Amazon basin, rich with flora and fauna, it is the crowning achievement of the Inca Empire at the peak of its powers.
Constructed more than 500 years ago on rocky terraces 2,430m above sea-level on the eastern slopes of the Andes, the city’s massive dry-stone walls and terraces and ramps seem as if they have been cut naturally in the continuous rock escarpments.

Machu Picchu was built around a century before the Spanish conquest of Peru and was abandoned after only 100 years at about the same time as the invasion. However, it is believed the Spanish never knew it existed at the time, and it was only discovered by explorers a little over a century ago in 1911 (although its existence is reported to have been known about locally).

The site is still being restored in an ongoing process over the decades; so far, less than half of the site is believed to have been excavated and restored.

However, as with many of the world’s great attractions, as it gets ever easier to travel, more and more people can get to Machu Picchu, so the Peruvian government has taken steps to strictly limit the numbers visiting the site. It’s also quite high in the Andes mountains, so accessing it isn’t quite as easy as just flying in there – you need to be prepared to climb a lot of steps, and for the altitude.

We asked world traveller Alison Heyworth, who has already ticked off many of the items on her own personal bucket list, including many of the world’s most famous attractions, for her top tips on a visit to Machu Picchu.
“It’s a great trip, Machu Picchu; doesn’t disappoint!” Alison confirmed, so we’re off to a good start.
Here are Alison’s five top tips:

1. Book Your Space

Because so many people want to visit Machu Picchu these days, the Peruvian Ministry of Culture limits the numbers allowed on the site in order to ensure it isn’t damaged. Advance reservation is required, and you need to know what you’re doing because you have to decide on which entry route you’ll be taking to reach the site – professional advice from a travel expert can be invaluable here.

“You have to book ahead to enter. They have a limit on people allowed in each day; I think it’s 2,500,” confirms Alison, who added, “In addition to the main site, there’s an ‘extra’ hill – Huayna Picchu. It also has a separate limit of about 400 each day, and there are only two early-morning time slots to access it; we weren’t organised enough to do that!”

The admission price is a little under £30, children under eight years old are admitted free of charge and there’s a reduced student rate for eight- to 17-year-olds.

A popular and often fun way to reach Machu Picchu is by train. From the train station you then get buses up a precipitous road with hairpin bends and are deposited at the entry station, which has a ticket office, café and other facilities.

2. Make Sure You’re Up To It

This is high mountain territory, and you need to be fairly fit to tackle Machu Picchu’s many brilliantly sculptured ramps and slopes.

“It’s surprisingly strenuous!” confirms Alison. “There’s a lot of climbing. It sounds obvious, but we saw quite a few people struggling. I think maybe because it’s such an iconic site that you kind of feel you’re familiar with it before you get there – a bit like you can feel with the Great Wall, but once you factor in getting there in the first place, the high altitude, possibly high temperatures and often high humidity, you do need to be reasonably fit to make the most of it.”

3. Hire A Guide

Hiring a guide is relatively inexpensive and highly recommended to make the most of your visit. There’s not much information provided at the site, so at least it’s important to ensure you have a good guide book so you know what you’re looking at if you are interested in more than just the initial “wow” factor.

“We definitely needed a guide; it would have been a huge amount of guesswork without one,” said Alison. “Having said that, our guide said most people just take a photo and then go straight back down again, and he seemed a little taken aback by our barrage of questions, but he rallied to the challenge!”

4. Be Aware Of Altitude Sickness

“Altitude sickness is definitely an issue for many people, and we suffered a bit ourselves, but saw others who were in a lot more discomfort,” said Alison.

If you think altitude sickness might be an issue for you, or you’re not sure, the advice is to spend a couple of days lower down to acclimatise before heading up.

“The locals recommend coca leaves and we drank this (in tea form) without a care in the world, but it was funny as two young women at the same hotel, who we got to know, worked for the US Drug Enforcement Agency and daren’t risk taking it; they said they get drug-tested every six months. No idea if the coca helped or not!” Alison added.

5. Check Out TheWider Region

Although Machu Picchu may be the main attraction, don’t forget that there’s lots more to see in the wider region.
One popular approach is to spend four days or so doing the Inca Trail, which brings together many of these sights.

“We were blown away by how many other Inca sites there are – we had no idea!” said Alison. “We explored a couple more once we did, but they were all over the place, and we ran out of time. You could easily spend a couple of weeks just touring the other sites.”

“In fact the Inca are still living and working in the area, speaking the same language, dressing in the same clothes, farming traditionally and eating and drinking Inca food and drink,” Alison added. “There are still many original Inca buildings, kind of made with polished dry-stone walls. It was all really interesting, and we’d love to go back sometime.”

Info

Official site: machupicchu.gob.pe
UNESCO listing: whc.unesco.org/en/list/274

Enregistrer