We spent the past few days in Cuzco fighting off massage, hostel, and restaurant touts, buying things (and paying through the nose to send them home), visiting three Incan ruin sites in the Sacred Valley, and finally, the Holy Grail, Machu Picchu. I'll focus on Machu Picchu.
First of all, Machu Picchu gets more hype than probably anything in South America. Unlike any of the other activities I´ve undertaken on this trip, it´s a place that people specifically come from all over the world to see. To be honest, I´ve never really understood the draw to it, but it was something I wanted to do because I was in the neighborhood. Maybe that´s why I wasn´t running around singing out in happiness like one of the girls we saw coming down the path.
The truth is, I was slightly bitter that I had forgotten my student ID card which would have reduced my entrance fee by 50%. No, I´m not a student anymore, and no, I´m not in favor of cheating the system when I don´t deserve something, but...
The admission fee was $49! That didn´t include the additional $12 charge for the bus to get to the ruin itself. And they didn´t even give us a fucking map or put signs with factual information anywhere. Nothing. I´m sure it´s because the millions of guides running around ($15 for two hours) would have had a fit.
My question is as follows: What are they spending all our money on? A day at Disney Land costs roughly the same, except Disney has some serious operating expenses. Electricity, personnel, and insurance, just to name a few biggies. Yeah, there were a few people scraping lichens off the rocks, but do you think they make as much money as the teenager strapping people onto Space Mountain? And Machu Picchu had llamas and alpacas wandering around to manicure the grass.
For a few hours, I was a shareholder, and I want to see the expenditures.
Ok, I´m really not all that bitter. I had a really nice day at Machu Picchu. It really was a beautiful place, and as usual, Mark and I took the road less traveled and hiked up Hauyna Picchu, the giant mountain in the backround of all the famous MP pictures. Pretty difficult for me given my fear of heights, but I made it up and back without a panic attack. They don´t believe in railings and safety down here...
Is Machu Picchu worth the hype? You have to see for yourself.
2 comments:
I'm sure you guys were a bit pressed on time, but I think you missed a major part of Machu picchu, which is the 3-day hike along the Inca Trail to get there. The hike is one of the most stunning hikes that I've ever done and when you finally get to disneyland, you get there before anyone else (like no line at space mountain) and so you get to enjoy such a peaceful place in peace and quiet.
I knew some people would take this personally... Completion of the Inca Trail is a huge partition between those who have and those who haven´t, both sides having passionate justifications for why they did or didn´t. I´ll just say, I was with people who did hike the Inca Trail when they rounded the Sun Gate and saw Machu Piccu for the first time. One girls started singing, and another girl said, ¨Where is it? Is that it?¨ Yeah, I would have liked to hike the Inca Trail for the hike, but I dídn´t have time (and geez, that´s not cheap either).
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