THERE ARE A COUPLE OF WAYS TO REACH THE FAMOUS RUINS OF MACHU PICCHU IN PERU. WE INSTEAD DECIDED TO FIND OUR OWN WAY ON THE BACK OF A MOTORCYCLE THROUGH THE SACRED VALLEY. IT WAS CRAZY AND COLD, BUT ALSO ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. HERE IS OUR STORY.
One book that is an absolutely worthwhile read is Robert Pirsig's, "Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". If you haven’t read it, do. You won’t regret it. If you have read it, then you will appreciate the means by which we got to Machu Picchu: by motorcycle.
Pirsig writes that there is no better way to see the world than to be submerged in it: the rain, the cold, the heat, the bugs. If you're behind a glass window, you don't appreciate the landscape nearly as much.
We fully agree.
That is why we set off on a newly rented motorbike to make an epic trek around the Sacred Valley, over a 3,256-meter pass, through the thick Peruvian jungle, and along precarious cliff-carved dirt roads, to get to the heart of Peruvian tourism: Machu Picchu.
THE BACKSTORY
One common misconception is that Machu Picchu is relatively difficult to get to. This is mostly due to the fact that no roads lead into Aguas Calientes - the small, touristy city at the base of famous ruins.
But in reality, you have more or less three routes to take to get there, all varying in cost and difficulty.
First, there is the standard, and horribly expensive, train that leaves the town of Cusco and zig-zags back and forth up the mountains, then descends into the Sacred Valley before following the Urubamba River downstream into Aguas Calientes.
The second option is to take a bus for approximately 5-6 hours from Cusco to a small town called Hidroelectrica, and then either catch the less expensive train from the station there or walk along the train tracks for approximately 11 kilometers (6 miles) to Aguas Calientes.
The third, and least traveled path, is on foot. There are plenty of trails that head towards Machu Picchu, among them the famous Inca Trail, which eventually drop you off at the Sun Gate on the edge of the ruins. There is also the Salkantay Trek: a multi-day backpacking trip that ends at Aguas Calientes (our friend did that and said it was indeed, epic).
Besides those two (The Inca Trail and Salkantay Trek, the most popular by far), we found other treks that started in Quillabamba, a hot jungle town near Santa Maria (off the main road), that definitely called to our adventurous spirit. If you have the time, we highly recommend hiking to Machu Picchu.
We didn't. So we took another approach to get there.
So, while we said there are three options to reach Machu Picchu, we decided to pick option four: motorcycle.
OUR MOTORYCLE ADVENTURE TO MACHU PICCHU
It was raining when we suited up. The salesman at the motorcycle rental place, Peru by Bike, stood outside squinting up into the rain saying that lady luck wasn't with us today. I believe he stood outside with us, getting his jacket completely soaked through, out of pity - and perhaps a bit of guilt at letting us go out into the wretched weather.
Either way, we eventually took off from the town of Cusco at around 7 a.m. We had decided on a whim to buy rain pants the morning of the adventure, and after eventually finding them (one hour and two markets later), we had already lost a lot of our day. But they proved their weight in gold and we didn't regret the decision at all later on down the road.
The paved, twisty road to the town of Ollantaytambo was familiar to us: we had ventured out a week previously on another bike, just to do a bit of a "scouting" mission. The high altiplano landscape outside of Cusco has a certain dreary draw to it. Especially when the fog kisses around the low, green mountains on either side of the valley.
Eventually, thanks to the speed we were moving at, and the slightly chilled air, our exposed fingers started to freeze. Once Luke (who was driving) started to lose feeling, we would pull over and jam our hands deep into 3 layers of pants to warm up. Luke eventually did this too many times for us to call it a worthy enough problem, and in the next town we bought dish-washing gloves to help keep the water and wind out of the gloves thin fabric.
Soon enough, we rode into Ollantaytambo, near the end of the Sacred Valley. The beautiful small town is situated precariously between multiple steep mountains. Most impressively, today - thanks to those creative and insanely adaptive Incans - those mountainsides are either terraced or covered in beautiful ruins. Waterways run through the town and its narrow cobblestone roads give the feeling of you being 300 years back in time. The main square, even though it’s surrounded by countless pizza and tourist restaurants, still holds its pride and Incan heritage with metal and woodwork of the famous Incan triage of animals: the Anaconda, the Cougar, and the Condor.
Setting off after a tasty lunch, we began the first difficult leg of our journey: we needed to climb out of the Sacred Valley and over a pass named Abra de Malaga, which sits well above treeline. But, the road there is tough. It winds back and forth up the valley walls, giving you blind turn after blind turn; all while it slowly gets colder and colder as you reach higher and higher elevations. By this time in the day, it still had not stopped raining, and everything was absolutely soaking wet. From the soles of our feet to the hair under our helmets. But the landscape was absolutely beautiful (remember “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” yeah this was our own type of “zen”).
Even through the pounding rain (and somewhat thanks to it), we could see waterfall after waterfall in the valley - many of which would have been dry otherwise. The cascades toppled off mountains and merged into each other, before finally reaching the rivers below. It was a beautiful sight: the white rapids against the wet green earth.
The pass eventually came into view and we were ecstatic...and cold. Very cold. Once at the top, we hopped off of our iron steed and stepped into the only building there: an old church. We quickly stripped off our gloves and helmets and warmed our fingers over the candles people had brought for prayers. People filtered in, all leaving prayers of safe travel through the rain and thick fog that waited for them below. We never caught a sideways glance warming our fingers though, the people in the church seemed to understand our dilemma.
The other side of the mountain was foretold to be warmer, it was the boundary of the Amazon Rainforest after all. So we kept pushing to try and break the now suffocating thick white fog that hung around us, soaking our whole bodies, and making the hairpin turns more terrifying than they already were. But we hardly broke it. Except once, when the beautiful snow-capped mountains surrounding us showed themselves for the tiniest amount of time before veiling themselves once again.