The Journey To Machu Picchu- Travel Guide

Good morning. It's Machu Picchu day. Good morning from Aiwan. Good morning from Ollantaytam. Spent the night here last night. We're going to grab the train to Aguas Calientes and get to Machu Picchu today. We just got down to the train station. The train to Machu Picchu is right behind us. We're getting ready to board. Can't wait to get there. I got all the materials here. Passports, tickets, nothing important. Good morning. We took the 360 train by Inca Rails and we were not disappointed. The cost was 60 to 70 US dollars per person. It was totally worth the experience. Check out this open rail car. It was amazing to see the sights and feel the breeze. Train is absolutely amazing. Yeah, just super, super nice. We have arrived in Aguas Calientes. Just took the train. Now we're going to walk over to drop all the things off at the hotel. Train was epic. It was awesome. Oh my gosh. Beautiful ride. Way more than what I would have expected out of the train. I mean, the viewing area, the scenery, the, yeah, yeah, comfortable. You got served tea and cookies. It was, yeah, yeah, it was clean. The views were epic. It was awesome. Little pound cake. Little pound cake. But we learned something very important. This is not Aguas Calientes anymore. Even though we really prefer that name, it's now called Machu Picchu Puebla. So it's the town of Machu Picchu. They changed it about three years ago. When I was here about 15 years ago, none of this was here. In the local market. We're not starting off with anything too exciting. Just a few things. Pro tip. Pro tip here. We didn't know. You don't want to use the water. They didn't have filtered water. She made the orange and carrot juice without using the water. So just orange and carrot. And there's no tourists in here. This is strictly the people who live here. I guess it's about a population of 2,000. All their groceries and have their, a lot of the food. So it's kind of cool to Yeah. And there are tourists here. Two of them. Right here. With a big camera. So yeah. We don't stick out or anything. Those ladies were just so nice and sweet. Man, I always worked with them. That little lady, that little old lady, she pulled up her phone and showed me what Aguas Calientes was. And she's on Facebook. She was probably pretty savvy because then she pulled up YouTube and then voiced in the words of the meal. Which shouldn't surprise us, but like this little old Peruvian lady and that's what she does. Just got on the bus heading to Machu Picchu. Can't believe it. 25 minutes and we get there. All right. We just got in. Came up to the left. We're going to the panoramic viewing area. Little rain, little clouds. It's all right. But we're joined by 4,000 other visitors because that's the cap per day here in Machu Picchu. But just epic views. Absolutely amazing. We got our first view. Wow. She's magic. We are on the original Inca trail. Original Inca trail. Right up there on that V is the pathway that some of the hikers would come through. Wow. Can you imagine? It's crazy. You never know what you're going to get with the weather, but I think the clouds kind of add to it. Mountains just jetting out of nowhere. Directly behind me is Machu Picchu mountain, which we'll be hiking tomorrow. Stoked about that. And then over here, we're starting to get to some of the houses. And I mean, it's just surreal to be here. The way this was discovered was in the late 1800s. The farmers just burned the mountains to see if they could find more land to farm on. And when they burned it, they found this. That was late 1800s. Then in 1911, Heidem Bingham, might be pronouncing that wrong. Heidem Bingham, you'd think he'd be Peruvian. He came here and made a lot of the discoveries. No, he's actually from Honolulu, Hawaii and did a lot of discovering in Peru. Apparently was related to or involved with the Tiffany Jewelry Company. So we all just learned from our guide. And I thought it was super interesting. Behind me is an example of the houses. You can see the stones that are round kind of coming out. That's where they would attach the roof on. And then there's a ring stones. And that's where they would pull grass roots even tighter to make the groups all across the house. What material that they use to tie the roofs together? Rope, grass, and mud. Yes, but the rope was something. Oh, sure. Llama skin. Llama skin. Llama for everything. Over here is the Temple of the Sun. What we just learned is the window right there is in the exact spot as the sun comes up for the winter solstice. Winter solstice shine straight through that window. The exact right spot as it rises over that mountain. And you can't see from this view, but there's another window and the sun would come over to the other side and it would rise for the summer solstice. And that window, the exact same spot. Amazing how you hear about any of these cultures way back in the day. For the science and engineering combination of astrology to be able to line up those windows for that sun to shine straight through. Absolutely amazing. Behind us is the main plaza gathering area. They're not quite sure of all the activities that took place here, but it's this large open green space. Absolutely beautiful. Here we're in the storehouse. This is where they stored a lot of things that they were using. Windows all closed up, but the beautiful stonework is still intact. Learned from our guide is that the Spanish actually never came to Machu Picchu. The Spanish came to Peru and destroyed a lot of the ruins, tons of ruins around Peru, but Machu Picchu is so special to the Peruvians because Spanish never stepped foot here. That's an important, very important piece of history that we just learned. This is our guide from the trip, Patricia. She was not only with us in Machu Picchu, but for our whole week experience in Peru. And she was absolutely amazing. We highly recommend having a guide when you come to Machu Picchu. The amount of history you will miss out on without a guide is laughable. The experience of exploring on your own will only get you so far in a place like this. The depth and the stories behind this amazing city are worth hearing from a local guide. Just got down to the bottom. Long bus ride. Exhausted. Can't tell, but we are tired. So time to get to the hotel, dinner, Machu Picchu day two tomorrow. In our next video we climb. We work hard to get to the top of Machu Picchu mountain and then we explore the town of Ayuantecumbo.