Day 15: 15/07/12
Two weeks done!! Today was Macchu Pichu. It was one of the best and the worst days ever- before ye start worrying both myself and Muireann are absolutely fine- not a bother on us.
We were collected from the hotel at 5am- we had to drive an hour and a half to the train station in Ollantaytamo and then spend an hour and a half on a train getting to Agua Calientes. Then there was a tour guide waiting for us- we had our own personal tour guide for the day!! We got a bus then up to Maccu Pichu. It was cool. It's a massive city on the middle of the mountains. It was started in 1450 and the Incas left it fleeing from the Spanish in 1537. The Spanish never discovered it so it is practically complete, apart from the thatched roofs missing!! We clinved up a bit first and had a view of the while city. There are two sides to the city- one for the royals and one for the commoners. There are houses with bedrooms and kitchens. All are empty though, just grass and stone. There are temples to The sun, mother earth (la pacha mama) and Wiracocha. There is a temple of three windows for the condor, puma and snake. There are guest rooms. There is a palace for the inca king to stay in when he came visiting from Cusco. There are large grass squares in the centre where the commoners and the royals would have gathered for festivities and celebrations. There is a high watch tower on the left and an astronomers tower with a sun dial on the right. There was a room with windows in to and if you spoke into one you could hear it in the other- great acoustics!! There was water flowing down from the mountain that they made a canal with that went all the way to cusco. There were carvings in the same shape as the mountain tips around. The urabamba river flows right around it and you can see right down into the valley. There is a carving of a condor and when people died they placed the bodies near there do the condor could bring their spirit to heaven and then they buried the corpse in the cemetery. The inca kings could only come from Cusco and they were all part of one royal family- the eldest son got to be king. One king (huayna capac) is rumoured to have 400 children- only a few were with the queen so only they could be royalty. The rest were with random women on his visits round the empire!! The last king was Atahualpa who was the eldest son of the guy above. He thought he should be king as he was the eldest but he was from Quito in Ecuador. His brother Huascar became king as he was from Cusco. After a civil war and with help from the Spanish Atahualpa killed him and got the throne and then the Spanish killed Atahualpa! There are few cities that the incas flees and the Spanish never found. Maccu Pichu was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911. He was looking for the lost city of the incas. It is thought that when they fled cities like Maccu Pichu that the brought their treasures and mummies of their kings further into the jungle and made a city there. They have found some trails but haven't found the lost city! They have found another city that is bigger than Maccu Pichu called - chokakirow. Phonetic spelling again! This will probably be more famous than Maccu Pichu when the archaeologists are finished with it! By th way, 75% of Maccu Picchu is original and 25% has been restored. There are numbers written on the blocks that have been restored. The tour took about two hours going round to different parts of the city. As you can imagine this was all class!
After this our ticket let us in behind Maccu Pichu to two mountains- huchuy Pichu (small one in the background) and wayna Pichu (big one in the background). We went up the small one first and got some cool pictures of Maccu Pichu and the mountains around! We were wrecked at this stage and had no intention of climbing the high one as it seemed really steep. So there was a path joining the two mountains that we went across for a look. I went over further than Muir to the bottom of the mountain so that Muir could take a picture of me with the mountain behind. Before I got there, I heard someone scream. I turned around and there was a girl tumbling down the hill screaming. I saw her roll a few times and then whack her back off a rock and then disappear into the trees below. I was rooted to the ground not knowing what to do. She had just passed Muireann and Muir shouted for help. 3 fellas came running as did the people who were with her. One fellow was running towards me asking where she was. I told him what I saw but she was nowhere to be seen. She couldn't be heard either. About 10 mins later, after I stopped shaking I made my way back to Muireann. We got off the hill as quick as we could and waited at the entrance to hear some news. The lads that had come running had made a chain down through the trees and found her. Some rescue people and a doctor came then. It took them a good while though. Luckily she was absolutely fine- miracle child! She was only 16. We saw them Carry her out on a stretcher and she was chatting away. Then she was actually on our train back to Ollantaytambo. We went over to say hello and although she was still in a stretcher and the doctor was with her, she was absolutely fine!! She had fallen at about 12 and she didnt get an anbulance until she came off tge train at 5.30- scandalous i think. Thanks be to God she was okay- we really thought we had witnessed someone fall to their death. Everyone else that saw her fall thought the same. If anyone ever had a guardian angel she does.
On the train back, a guy with a mask, costume and wig frightened the life out of us- dancing round the carriage- quite funny!! Then they had a fashion show, modelling various clothes made of alpaca wool- marching up and down the carriage- they are pure mad!!
We met Annmarie and Sheila in town then and went for dinner. Yummy food. We stopped trip stories. The inca trail was their best bit so far, but they said it was fairly dangerous aswell.
Anyway, Maccu Pichu was lovely but watching the girl fall completely took the wind out of our sails. Three hours of our time there were taken up with worrying about her. A lot of other people were the same. One couple had to go because their train was leaving, but asked for us to email them if we heard anything. Thankfully it was good news.
Jus incase any of ye are going to start worrying- we have been completely safe in everything we have done and today frightened the hell out of us so we will be extra extra extra careful!