“Wake up!”, the boys called as they banged at our door. It was a ripe 3:30 am. All of the girls groaned as we slowly opened our eyes into a pitch-black room. We had to be out of the hotel and on the bus by 4. I had fallen asleep on the 30-minute bus ride after eating the delicious breakfast sandwiches that the amazing hotel staff had prepared for us. We then hopped on a train ride to one of the seven wonders of the world, Machu Picchu. We all sat next to each other on the train, and it being about 4:45 and still pitch black out, we were all extremely sleepy. Though, as the sun slowly started to come out and sneak over the peaks, the mountains started to glow.
The train ride followed the Urubamba River, a beautiful peaceful river nestled in between these huge gorgeous mountains. At this point, it was pretty hard to be asleep when we this view was right in front of our eyes. When we got off the train and onto yet another bus up the hill to the Incan ruins, my jaw dropped again. We rode up a switchback road that reminded me of the pass we take to get to the mountains in Colorado, but this had no comparison. I looked out the window, and my vision was filled with the most gorgeous peaks I have ever seen. They were beautifully green, covered in forest, and reached so high into the sky. I heard nothing but sounds of awe during that bus ride from the fellow SStS members. Even though I did not want that beautiful drive to end, we eventually came to a stop at the top of the mountain. There, we were hit with the realities of visiting an amazing place like Machu Picchu: tourists. Slowly though, we got to the front of the line to scan our tickets and entered the ruins.
Led by our amazing tour guide, Victor, we ventured through the stone buildings that had once been home to 400 people. He shared with us all of his knowledge of the different sectors of the ruins. We stopped many times for photos, as tourists do, and listened intently to Victor’s speeches. It was so surreal being able to walk pretty freely around these sacred stone ruins. As we were leaving, I took one last look out onto the hill, but I mainly saw a lot of people. Observing the tension between this historical land and the many tourists was super fascinating to me. It is a beautiful place, but having hundreds of people visit daily feels a little bit wrong.
We ate a delicious lunch at a restaurant outside of the ruins and then got in line for the bus down. Well, we tried to. The line was hundreds of people long… we couldn’t see the end. So, we opted to hike down back to the train station. Even through this change in plans, nobody complained and everyone took on an adventurous mood. We got to see a different perspective of the mountains than when we first came up, which was very lucky. The long bus line was a blessing in disguise.
