Being the highlight of everybody’s Peru agenda,  many book their Machu Picchu visit way in advance, which tends to be a good idea as entrance tickets are limited and often sold out (increasingly year by year) and the only access to Machu Picchu is by train and therefore also limited to a few departures every day (unless you want to hike the Inka trail – which is even more limited to 500 people per day).

With no fixed travel agenda, we preferred to postpone our bookings and just checked online once in a while to make sure tickets are still available on short notice of 2-3 days in advance. Until we arrived in Ollantaytambo, the last stop before Machu Picchu and it was time to get tickets…
You know how around the world in every tourist village, no matter how small, there is always one travel agency at every street corner and you can count on hundreds of touts screaming after you “Cusco, Inka trail, Machu Picchu, …” (or whatever is the local highlight) ?  After a while of traveling you develop a natural ignorance for them and so it happened that only when we decided to open our ears in Ollantaytambo we realized how quiet it was 
!! Turns out Machu Picchu tickets can only be bought in Cuzco or directly at Machu Picchu !!

But no reason to panic – there is still the option of buying tickets online from the official site. (Even though the English version does not allow online booking, our rudimentary Spanish is already good enough to follow the, though complicated, Spanish booking).

Haha, you wish! Of course every little cafe nowadays offers WiFi, but nobody thought of upgrading Ollantaytambo’s internet capacity to the exponentially growing data usage of dear fellow travellers. The internet speed across town is so slow it was impossible to access the (flash-overloaded) webpage of Machu Picchu. After a few trials during the day and in different locations we figured out it’s not an issue of our hotel but an issue across the city (luckily I didnt send out that nasty tripadvisor review I had in mind…). Following a thorough regression analysis we deduced the strong correlation of “popular surfing time” to “access speed of Machu Picchu website” and set our alarm for next day 3am, where we were finally able to book our dear tickets.

After so much trouble to get our tickets, we were making sure we enjoy them as much as possible. Instead of rushing there in a day trip we booked ourselves two nights at the little town Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu mountains to have the full day at our disposal. Aguas Calientes is a place 100% dedicated to transiting tourists, cramped ablock with hostels, restaurants and shops and easily ignored, but  a short walk is enough to put you into the right mental state thanks to the mesmerizing scenery and a little Machu Picchu museum preparing us for the big day

There are a few tips to avoid the crowds (as much as that is possible). We followed one of them by pure coincidence, namely to go on a Sunday, when many tour groups have a visit to the market on their agenda. And indeed – while other days were mostly sold out, our day still had 500 tickets remaining. The main difference however comes from the timing of the visit. Early morning and late afternoon are the quietest so many people follow the early-bird strategy. The first bus leaves Aguas Calientes at 5:30 am and people are increasingly competing to be in the front of the line. Apparently nowadays the queue already starts at 4am and it seems only a question of time until the first put up their tent at the bus stop. Everybody who knows us are no stranger to our appetite for early wake-up calls. We therefore decided to focus on the afternoon for exploring the ruins and to spend the morning hiking up Machu Picchu mountain, one of the two mountains overlooking the ruins.

We arrived around 7 at the site, the morning mist had mostly cleared, and shortly after the entrance we were already stunned with the beautiful panorama of the ruins with Huayna Picchu mountain in the background.

After a first hour of enjoying the view and exploring the entrance section, we started our hike up the mountain.

Climbing the stairs up the Mountain, you get an increasingly wider view of the site and surrounding mountains and it’s hard to resist the urge to take photos at every turn. The climb is very enjoyable and technically not too difficult – only that we underestimated the 600m of elevation and were struggling at the end with the path getting steeper and steeper. Not recommended for people scared of heights!

The views from the summit made it all worth. Being the highest peak it gives you an amazing 360° view of the whole area.

All in all it took us 5 hours to get back to the “base” and judging from the registration book we might have set a new record for the slowest ascend
The remaining energy lasted just enough for us to limp into the only restaurant at the site. And to say the least, we were happy to indulge in a long buffet lunch break.

Revitalized, we re-emerged at the site in the early afternoon and spent the remaining time until closure at 5pm to explore the ruins.
By the time it had already gotten much emptier and we had a great time strolling through the different sections and admiring the architectures and the vastness of the ancient city.

It was really impressive how the city was integrated with its surrounding, optimizing the available space and using existing stones for religious purposes.

As often Yang Ke focused more on the fauna of the place and apart from the popular llamas, gracefully decorating the terraces, also discovered a few other inhabitants.

The sun was slowly setting and the guards were getting bored – until they started to chase us out.

All in all a truly impressive experience and even though we couldn’t feel any esoteric energies flowing through our bodies, I think Machu Picchu’s vote as New World Wonder is definitely justified!