Machu Picchu: The Struggle

So I never really got a chance to tell my “I spent my entire summer in Perú and almost couldn’t go to Machu Picchu” story.  Clearly and not surprisingly, it was all my fault.  In mid-march of 2014 I learned that I had been awarded a scholarship from the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering called the Vredenburg Scholarship which funded my summer lab research at la Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería in Lima.  Clearly  I was stoked, and despite my complete love of traveling, I have an irritating aversion to planing so it took me until early June to think about booking one of the coolest (and most popular) parts of my trip.  I waited to book my trip until June partly because I was coordinating with other members of my Engineers without Borders group that were traveling with me at the end of August - realistically though it was because I was being lazy.

My problem (as I am sure many people have been frustrated with) is that Machu Picchu tickets are actually a bit hard to come by.  Firstly:  the tickets are limited.  Tickets to both the Inca Trail and the actual site of Machu Picchu are limited with the number of the visitors that they can have.  The Inca Trail can only have 500 individuals (including porters) on the trail at any one time…given that the Inca Trail takes four days to complete, this means that only a little over 100 people can start on the trail each day.  Tickets to the actual site of Machu Picchu are limited to 2,500 individuals.  This may seem like a lot of people (as I innocently assumed…but believe me, people LOVE Machu Picchu).  During the peak season between May and June there will be people snatching up these tickets left and right.

When seeing that the number of tickets to an attraction is limited, I feel like it is our natural inclination to wonder why.  What is stopping us from visiting Machu Picchu?  I believe the official answer has something to do with preserving the city.  Requiring responsible, and if you consider Machu Picchu to be apart of the environment, ecotourism from its guests.  I guess my question was though to what extent does limiting the number to 2,500 people per day actually help the cause?  2,500 people per day is still 17,500 people per week and almost 1 million people per year - no wonder there are concerns about keeping it pristine!

Tons of huge tourist groups coming through Machu Picchu

Doing some brief ~research~ on sustainable tourism and I came across the term “Tourism Carrying Capacity” (TTC) defined by Middleton and Hawkins Chamberlain in 1997 as “the level of human activity an area can accommodate without the area deteriorating, the resident community being adversely affected  or the quality of the visitors experience declining”.  To me there are separate interesting things about this definition.  For one how is the number of humans in an area to keep it from deteriorating?  Doesn't one tourist change the environment of Machu Picchu?  The other interesting thing to me was that the TTC accounted for the visitors experience - and having travelled to Machu Picchu, having one other person there also negatively affects your experience.  How do you balance this true sustainable tourism with realistic sustainable tourism?

Tourists petting all the llamas

Anyways back to the story of how I was a complete idiot…so I knew that the tickets were limited BUT I also was cheap.  You can get tickets half off for students, but you have to do it either at Machu Picchu, in Aguas Calientes or in Cusco.  So I told myself, I will check the Machu Picchu ticket website everyday to see if they still have a lot of tickets available, and if they are, just buy them when I get there.  Now for like 6 weeks there were like 500 tickets left - plenty of tickets in my mind.  Then suddenly, zero.  No tickets for the days around it too.  THERE WERE NO TICKETS AVAILABLE TO GO TO MACHU PICCHU.  Machu Picchu is one of the seven wonders of the world and there were literally NO tickets for me to see it while I was in Perú!  How ridiculous, and stupid.  I panicked, and refreshed, panicked and refreshed….then there was 1 ticket.  So this leads me to discuss the second problem with buying Machu Picchu tickets: they are difficult to purchase.  In order to purchase them through the Peruvian government, you either need to buy them through a ticket office or online.  I presume buying them through a ticket office is simple, but as mentioned before are only in limited locations.  If you are wanting to book them from outside the country, the website is the only option.  You have to log on (http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/), select the dates and options: Machu Picchu alone, Machu Picchu and Museum, Machu Picchu and Huaynapicchu, Machu Picchu and Machu Picchu Mountain).  If you can be at Machu Picchu I recommend buying one of the mountain tickets.  Anyways once you make the selection you get a ~reservation~ to go and see Machu Picchu….woo!!  And yet, the worst is yet to come, you now have 6 hours to make your payment.

This was the stage I was at, I had refreshed to find a ticket and reserved it.  If you don’t want to go through the hassle of purchasing the tickets on your own you can go through a tour company, I never used one, so I have no recommendations, but its very googleable.  The disadvantage is that various tour companies mark up the price of these tickets by varying amounts.  Honestly though, given the rest of the stress of my story just book through a tour company.  Anyways you can pay via credit card, but it has to be visa.  It also has to have a special verification too.  Basically from my extensive research of random travel blogs and websites during those 6 hours, if your credit card is not Peruvian, it will not work.  Your only solution is to go to the National Bank of Peru (el Banco de la Nación de Perú).

So by the time I realized this it was around 8 p.m. and the banks had closed and by midnight, those 6 hours ran out- and clearly I was on edge.  I had researched the fact that the banks opened at 8:30 a.m., so I just had to last another 2 and a half hours (3 to be safe), to reserve the ticket to be able to be at the bank when it opened to pay for it.  I had no idea if in another ticket was going to be there.  Now I am trying to make this seem exciting and honestly I am getting some anxiety just writing it because it was VERY action packed, but no worries I made it.  I reserved the ticket, woke myself up and was in front of the bank at 8 a.m.  NOT EVEN ridiculously early given the fact that one woman was in front of me and by the time 8:30 rolled around like 40 people were in line.

Anyways, the thing at the bank takes like 30 seconds.  You just read them your reservation number and you get a confirmation number.  I ran back to my apartment.  Let me rephrase that - sprinted back to my apartment, typed in the confirmation and SUCCESS I had my ticket.  What can I say, all worth it!  Machu Picchu is beautiful and intriguing - even though I desperately wish that I did not have to deal with all of that anxiety, it was well worth the process in order to see Machu Picchu!!!