After roaming the grounds for a while, it came time to hike up Cerro Machu Picchu. Cerro MP is the fairly tall mountain (9170 ft, about 2000 vert above MP) at the south end of the MP complex. Access to all of Machu Picchu is highly regulated, including the hiking routes to this and another mountain in the nearby area--we had to pay extra when buying our tickets to do this hike, and we had to be on the route before 11, and off before 3. Regulators obviously know that this place attracts a lot of people who have never hiked a mountain before and they really don't want to stay late carrying someone off. So we were obediently at the entry gate to the Cerro MP trail just before 11.
Here is the view downstream of the Urubamba. A hydro-power station is down there. According to our map, a 3-4 km conduit was drilled through the mountain range to take advantage of a hairpin bend in the river (with MP at the apex of the hairpin).
MP is really in cloud-jungle, compared to Ollantaytambo, as you can see by the vegetation.
Rugged mountains.
After a couple hours, topping out.
Aerial view of MP.
I was there too! Huayna Picchu in background.
The view across and down to Huayna Picchu, the peak at the north end of MP. Huayna Picchu is generally the more sought-after hike because it has many ruins built into some wild cliffs all along the hike, and you can also see a secluded site called the Temple of the Moon if you go out of your way a bit. This was our plan as well, but we waited too long to buy our tickets, so Cerro MP was still a great alternative. A much more significant hike, aerobically.
A lot of things about regulations in MP seem to have recently changed. Many guidebooks and websites said nothing about ordering tickets online way in advance--many sources merely said to buy tickets in Aguas Calientes the evening beforehand--our plan, since we wanted to keep flexibility about the day we'd visit MP. Also, many sources said that to hike either mountain, you just had to be at the trail entrance gate before reaching its quota of 200-500 people for the day. Luckily, Rosie had me do a bit more drilling and I realized we would, in fact, have to nail down our date via the internet.
We also got shooed off the mountain at very specific time, maybe 12:30, not long after we had gotten up there, actually. Of course, Rosie and I knew exactly how long it would take us to walk down 2000 vertical feet and we'd planned to hang out up there for some time...but again, they deal with a lot of people who don't know what they're doing. We're (I'm) just rather bristly at being kicked off a mountaintop when some regulator says so. We still got a decent bit of time on top.
Some cool, wild flowers there.
As above, and below, there were some pretty airy spots along the trail, especially if you are going to be passing people descending as you head up. There were some acrophobic people on the trail having a bit of trouble.
Lichen? Must photograph!!!
Jungly.
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