..finally got to Machu Pichu..

so here we are.. at the world famous Machu Pichu :)

turned out that my headache came from the altitude change.. more than 3000m a day is too much without chewing coca-leaves (what I should do the next time).
was beautiful to ride out of the valley (left very early) and listened to some psy-trance mix I found that really rocks! :D curvy road up the mountains and down on the other side to Urubamba.. actually to ?Oyatullataytambu? (very complicated name that I still don´t know).
along the way you get quite an impression of Peru.. different styles of houses.. starting with bamboo-mats over adobe to brickstone and finally painted with windows :) see a lot of farming animals along the way and thought a lot about mankind.. how we live, how we evolved and how we survived and still survive. I made up my mind pretty much about this :)
The plan was to leave the bike and take the train from there, but very, very expensive.. 40USD one way and reservation and going in the middle of the night.. it´s super over-turisty here, but whatever..it´s Machu Pichu ;)
so when I figured this out, I already unloaded my bike and stored it in a parking.. changed then my plans and left the bike at the police station while walking up a hill at the above mentioned place :) on the other side you could see hundreds of tourists walking up the palace ruins, but was way nicer on the lonely side :) met a teacher from Lima and told me about how the Inka lived at the place, about their leader and what the buildings we visited were used for.. drying corn and grains.
some raindrops fell, but not really raining.. went down, picked up the bike and went out of town to fill up the tank to make the way to Santa Theresa (that´s drivable) and to enter Machu Pichu from there..
one thing to mention here is.. the distance is always 3km (some kinda magical number here I guess ;) but then it varies between 5km and 10km in the end :P so got my gas, found a place to stay in town. Got sandwich and food for the next day and got up today at 4.20am to ride to St.Theresa and take a train that´s cheaper from the other side and walk up Machu Pichu today.. but then I had a lot of changes.. (it´s probably the essence of this trip: to learn to adapt to changes.. what is also what makes us survive! ;)
so far so good.. left at 4.40am and after 20min I could turn off the lights (got bright pretty quickly). The road was asphalted to my surprise and it was easy to get to the almost snowy top of the pass that leads down to jungle then. since I passed the devils spine, I haven´t had so many curves.. lot´s of 180ª and more.. wearing a lot of stuff and my new alpaca-scarf, I was just fine! :) on the top a beautiful view over a sea of clouds.. piercing down through them until the paved road ended. Had to ask for the way and took me more than the 2.50hrs I´ve been told :P
went then through jungle and along a steep mountain ridge, had to wait for 20min at a construction side and almost made it to St.Theresa, when while driving in the middle of the road a car showed up and the mix of speed, surface of the road and my tyres made it just happen, that I hit the front part of the car with my side pannier :( ..too bad, just had one and should have put it on the right side.. but anyway.. I was thinking about what would happen, if this happens.. now I know.. well, tore off that pannier in an ugly way and damaged the front of the car. But nobody got hurt and my bike still runs (as it seems.. drove then into some loose dirt of the hill side.. for my Mom again: I have NO scratch and the bike is OK. The pannier gets fixed right now and is hopefully not more than 30USD, because I´m running out of cash here in Aguas Calientes :P (entry Machu Pichu 40USD and bus one way 7USD). No worries.. I gonna make it ;)
so to fix the car it could be around 250USD :((( after 40.000km the first 3rd person damage.. I don´t know if my insurance is gonna pay. To be on the safe side, I don´t expect it, but then I would also have to ask myself, why I have an insurance anyway ;)
finally I got a ride to the trainstation outside of St.Theresa, where I started to hike here.. well.. a few years ago I would have flipped in such a situation ;) but I handle it way better now. I had some close calls in my life (who had not?) ..fell off a chair while playing with a knife, when I was a child.. the wicked looking scar is visible up to the very day.. sat in sissors.. could have pierced my balls or worse ;) (..never thought about that.. what could have happened). and then while knitting to show a row, I had a little race with my friend that ended in a bodycheck, me almost taking out an eye with a needle.. learned something that day: "running with knitting needles" is a bad idea ;) so yeah.. as long you don´t drive off a cliff (there were quite a lot of such spots today ;) you are fine! :)
I mean it sucks to loose.. to mess it up. To cause expenses (as I try to save money on my trip here) and circumstances.. as I left my credit cards with my stuff, I can´t get any money here.. will have to pay him (or somebody he knows) when picking up the rest of my stuff. I´ll be happy, if it´s done.. debts paid and no karmic loss ;) hehe.. really! even if it sucks to lose money that way, I could never ever run away of that and leave somebody upset, cursing and hating me and wasting his precious time on this planet being in such a mood. So even if we have never met and will never meet again, let´s keep things the right way and seperate as friends.
so in the end these costs don´t matter.. it´s more the experience and what I can take out of it (drive safe and take the consequences of your actions).

so then on the way while hiking along the railroad (figured out, there is no train until 3pm :P I met some people that gave me informations about Machu Pichu and told me, I should be at the busstation at 4am in the morning to be on the first buses at 5.30am (another crazyness here!!!!) to be amongst the people who can get on the top of the area.. and to have the whole day to explore.. I would have arrived at noon today or later and that´s just not wort to spend the 40 bucks. So I got a room here and will do the early-bird-thing tomorrow again ;) and then after it, walking back to St.Theresa (hopefully get a ride from the station into town) and get the stuff done with my bike.. box OK, checking receipt from car repairs, stay a night, leave early, pay debts and drive to Cuzco, where there is paragliding hopefully :)

that´s it :) freed my mind.. tonight hot springs here, if it´s in the budget ;)