The second meeting with the lost Machu Picchu city.

I left jungles and came to the ancient capital of Incas – Cusco. I didn’t like the city since it was always cold and rainy there. I also got sick with a mountain disease there… It’s difficult to move and breathe due to high altitude. You walk 100 meters and you have to stop and breath… You grab the air with your mouth… I always drank tea made of coca due the altitude… Cusco proved me that I don’t like mountains. After I finished all the experiments on me in jungles and mountains I went to Machu Picchu. That actually was the reason I went there. That should be my second meeting with the ancient puzzle.

The first meeting with Machu Picchu was very long time ago in Germany, not Peru. When I was a poor student in Berlin, I was at the dormitory of my friend’s sister (Hello Sasha!). I was reaaaly impressed by the huge wallpaper in the restroom. There was also a caption to the picture: “Machu Picchu, Peru”. That was the moment when I decided to get sometime there to see the place with the weird name “M-a-c-h-u P-i-c-c-h-u…”

You can walk or take a train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. My initial plan was to walk the Incas path up to the top of the mountain of Machu Picchu. Incas path was the way ancient Incas used. Currently it’s used only by mountain goats and crazy gringos :) You have to walk 3-4 days staying overnight several times. I remembered the fact I sleep in my clothes covered with 4 blankets in a hotel, imagined myself at a rainy mountain night and decided to fuck that shit go by train.

I named the train “gringo train” :) There was a Japanese guy, an American woman, a dude from Honduras, a Brazilian woman, one guy from Korea and me from some unknown place :)) We should start our way at 9 but we did at 11 am (Peru time). That broke all my plans to come back to Cusco and catch my train to Puno.

We came to Aguas Caliente, the city below Machu Picchu. I realized I had only 5 hours for everything keeping in mind one hour necessary to reach the top… I planned to do the way myself, see the ancient wonder far away from me and feel the stop of heart beat :)))

Well, that didn’t happen. I saw a bus and asked the guard the way I could get in… He told the bus went to the top for half an hour. I found it to be a good time saving! When I approached the bus I noticed the line of Chinese people… All of them were wearing the same hats… Men had Panama hats and ladies had caps looking like bells… They all looked similar and the only thing that distinguished men from women were hats :)
I joined their line and the Indian asked me whether I was in the group. I tried to copy dumb Chinese smile and say “Ah, si-si” :) I had already been told that Indians can’t distinguish white faces but I had never believed that before:) I entered the bus and took the front seat. Chinese people started to ask me details about the bus ride and I told them the stuff I just found out from the guard :))) The whole bus believed I was a guide :)

Machu Picchu. Even though I saw it from a tour bus my heart got frozen! The abandoned city was between huge peaks among clouds… That was the city I had never seen before… There were dozens and hundreds of tourists but I couldn’t see them… I saw only its green terraces, temples and altars… There were huge stone walls made of rocks in the way you couldn’t stick a knife’s blade in… The steps were polished by hundreds of bare feet… Energetics of those places was so high that first you are swayed from side to side… It was rainy but I couldn’t feel it… I felt only the deep thrill of the city… Who and why built it? It took so titanic power to build a city in those surly mountain altitudes… In the name of what it was done? I knew the answer. They did it in the name of faith… They built it in the name of their faith… I’m not sure they made it for the sake of money or gold… I can’t believe it was built by slaves since it was easier to die than suffer those torments… It was built by free human beings who BELIEVED and bowed down to the SUN…

Clouds and Wind over the Machu Picchu


Here it is – the lost city of Incas, whose empire spread for more than 4 thousand kilometers!


Multi-level terraces


They say ancient Incas could pulverize stones. They didn’t use chalk or any other fluid in their buildings.




The city was sacred and inhabited mainly by females. It is still unknown why it was abandoned.



P.S. The descendants of the people, who built the city in the name of their faith, now bow to the other sun.
Peru money is called Sol Nuevo or “New Sun”...