Yetti’s Pacific North West Exploration & Expeditions Picture heavy

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

After Pablo’s studio/ Urubamba Peru we started to climb and were back on pavement at least for a bit. It had been a beautiful sunny, almost too toasty for me. Ride day thus far.

A little way out of town, it opened up. And started to dump, we knew this was a possibility and we had been heading toward the dark skies for a few hours. Finding a place to pull over and put on rain layers for some. And place the rain jacket over our packs for others. * For the entire trip, I never ended up zipping in any of my rain layers or extra insulated layers.

We kept climbing and riding higher, until we got to our max elevation of the day at 14k feet.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

The days end goal was hot springs. I really, love hot springs>,And was stoked about this. Especially after being on a moto for 8ish hours, and it also being rainy and cold for the last part. Lares Hot springs,

It was super packed, and pretty dirty. Elbow to elbow in the few pools that were open, and people washing clothes and themselves in the pools. I was bummed, but it could be worse!

Stretched our legs a little and wandered the grounds, there were Inka burials there. I am inspecting one of them, with multiple bodies. We were trying to guess sex, as well as possible COD, other markers in the bones. We did see some interesting things.

(Note, I started the In Reach when I strapped my bag to the moto every day, and shut of off when I pulled the pack at the end of the day)

I now, have the tracking data and stats since I was recording the ride days with my In reach Mini. It was about 8.5 hrs, 56.14 miles, Max elevation of 14616ft.




Its hard to tell here, but the top of the door was many inches narrower than the bottom. Don’t see that often.



The orange line around the blue, is the trip for that day’s ride. I am not sure how to get it to only show me 1 day/what is selected at a time.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

Day 2, ( Nov 3rd) we left the hot springs and spent the day on gravel, including some down and backs. The end goal for the day was Ollantaytambo. As we would then take the train to Machu Picchu the following day. And then ride again the day after.

We took a hard and tight right and kept climbing for most the day.
It was a day of tiny towns and almost 2 lanes. With no shortage of water crossings and tight switchbacks.


I should have taken more pictures of the little tuk tuk’s, they are all personality.



This was, maybe 5 miles in.


One of the down and backs, ended at this little farm.





Blind corners and pictures

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

We rode through mountain valleys and peaks. This lake was a nice surprise, I am not sure what birds those were, ducks of some sort I believe. They were living their best lives on the tiny island nest.
More small farms and houses.

 

[ITTOG]

That farm had amazing views.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

Was a short ( Uneventful and fun)ride day, with good weather. And enjoyed the day wandering about town and getting some good food. There are some other ruins here, we did not check them out. As the posted price was 170/soles per person. Which is high. We later learned that this was for a multi ticket, which has a number of sites on it. However, it was not marked as such here. So, we decided not to go to this one.
We all carry phones, and if we are being honest, they have decent cameras. But as the close photos here show. They do have their limits. Everything is a trade off, and those tradeoffs are heavily weighted when on a moto.

And we were starting to get better with one another's abilities. This riding is not the same as cruising. And we all had varying degrees of experience. And even the riding position is very different on Adv Motos versus other types.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

Nov 4th

We woke early and headed to the train. Getting to Machu Picchu is a journey in of itself. A train takes you to Aguas Calientes. The only way to reach this town near Machu Picchu is by train from Cusco or Ollantaytambo, or by a combination of bus and a long hike to the "Hidroeléctrica" power plant, followed by a walk to Aguas Calientes; there are no roads leading directly to Aguas Calientes by car or bus due to the mountainous terrain.

This train takes 2-3hrs each way. And you need to be there early, they have the system down however.

I did not take as many pictures of the train, but here are a few. Along with an image of the distance, of course the route is not a straight line. And you do have some elevation change, just not the ways you would expect.

Ollantaytambo Peru, 9160 ft
Aguas Calientes Peru, 6690 ft

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

The people watching is fascinating, locals, tourists, people doing photo shoots. With hair and makeup staff following them around. And the clothes, everything from ball gowns, wedding dresses to shorts and flip flops. And no shortage of folks just wanting “ the shot” .And a lot of locals, doing heritage photo shoots.

Once you get into Aguas Calientes, you have to find your bus. The tickets have time slots, and you need to be in line 2 hours early: but really.

Having a in country guide/helper was pretty cool for specific things, this was one of them.

There was an older lady, waiting for us once we got off the train. She wasted no time, in taking our pictures, and taking us to the specific bus line, as well as making sure we were not only the 1st in line. But also making sure the line moved as it should. (The lines would also move locations, as the bus schedule progressed)

She was on it and was taking no crap from anyone. And she sent our pictures to the guide (her son) whom we were meeting on Machu Picchu. She did not speak any English but had clearly been doing this for a while. My Spanish worked just fine, but she had pre typed cards with directions/update she would show us as we were waiting. The first in line 2 hours early seemed excessive. But only for the 1st 20 mins. It then became clear; this was a good idea. As the lines, and confusions for which lines to be in,

The schedule is tight. And I can’t imagine how frustrating it mut be herding tourists all day.

The one lane route up, is steep, and filled with corners and these bus’s that have to time things perfectly to not hit one another as the can only pass on the corners. It is literally, quite the ride.

And here we climb back up, to about 7972 ft,

That’s right, Machu Picchu is lower than you think. With Cusco being 12k feet



These are stock photos, apart from the one that has my face. They had sandbags stacked high all around the rivers when we were there. As referenced in the post with the street dogs.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

Things have changed since my brother did it on his Pan Am trip; Since C-19.

You can no longer wander all around the place, there are specific routes/tracks you get to go on. Based off the tickets you purchased. This is a bit of a bummer, but it keeps folks not only flowing through but not stacked up. It works well.

Noteworthy*

• Once you enter/and they scan your ticket. You cannot leave (like to use the restroom or get extra water). As those are outside the gates.
• You can only enter the gate that matches your ticket. There are 3-4. We were on the lowest gate,
• We packed sunscreen, BUT the biting bugs just killed some of us. Sand Flies, and Midges. ¾ of us had bites that were red, and itchy, till after we got home a few weeks later.
• It easy to get medicine for this, many pharmacies in most towns. And they know.
• You don’t have to use a guide up there, but it was nice to hear the history and current theories.
• They have guides that speak any language needed.
• The guides are federally regulated, they tell the same jokes, take the same pictures and give the same info. It’s a hard program to get into from what we were told.

Machu Picchu is indescribable. Words cannot do it justice, and its all the things you’ve heard and more. Its so amazing, and impressive.

The stonework and engineering is incredible.

They flattened the top of this mountain, THEN built Machu Picchu from the ground up. It has built in water storage, drainage, and running water.

And still in great shape, for a 1500 yr old place. Modern construction methods don’t survive that long.





Our Guide Above , he is a solid dude.
We wandered around when we 1st got to the gate, as he was not waiting for us. So we went in and up, met a few LLamas.
Then headed back to the gate and sent a few msgs. He was running late as he is part of the medical/rescue/fire fighting team up there. And they had just had to truck someone down the mountain. We all got along great and discussed some medicine and fire fighting differences.

I cant for the life if me remember his name right now,

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu stands 2,430 m above sea-level, in the middle of a tropical mountain forest, in an extraordinarily beautiful setting. It was probably the most amazing urban creation of the Inca Empire at its height; ...

whc.unesco.org

Some of the photos I am having trouble getting to upload,

Could take a million, and it would not be enough. One of those places

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

It is so cool.

I dont think I have any doubles posted.

The llamas were everywhere, and seemed to enjoy messing with people.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

This was a full day, dark to dark. After Machu Picchu, it was back to the bus, then we grabbed some food and walked around town. We had a bout 2 hours to kill, then the train back. With a early, and the longest ride day of the trip the next morning.



We were all starving after, no shortage of good food.


I could not get this to post regardless of what I had it sized as, soooo got creative. These were some of the above ground drainage and running water devices.




I tracked the route we walked with my Suunto watch.

 

[ITTOG]

It is amazing Machu Pichu still stands and they did not use mortar. We use mortar and it still falls down.

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

PNWY.....thanks for posting your trip report. I'm enjoying the pictures (the food pics too) and it all brings back fond memories. Times sure have changed over these past decades. Back in the day, you could just wander around and there were no crowds. I see you took the fancy train ! I was backpacking & staying in hostels so of course I took the locals' train.....not near so fancy. I spent nearly a week hanging out there.....got some climbing in. Here's a few pictures from a climb up Putukusi.....a mountain on the other side of the Urubamba River.....

 

[the deputy]

To me...you can almost see two different time periods. Stuff built on the left, pre-alcohol (hey, let's get this done right - stones chiseled to prefection - since we have nothing else to do). Stuff on right, post alcohol (okay guys, that's good enough...let's go have a beer).