Entrance to Macchu Picchu
Closed     Case # 10056     Affiliated Job:  BaBaDou DOT Com
Opened:  Friday, July 29, 2011     Closed:  Friday, July 29, 2011
Total Hit Count:  17741     Last Hit:  Tuesday, October 15, 2024 2:07:16 PM
Unique Hit Count:  5415     Last Unique Hit:  Tuesday, October 15, 2024 2:07:16 PM
Case Type(s):  Travel
Case Notes(s):  All cases are posted for review purposes only. Any implementations should be performed at your own risk.

Problem:
Upon arrival to Machu Picchu, we quickly were informed that entrance is now limited to 2,500 visitors a day. This new rule, implemented 1 week before we arrived, made obtaining tickets that next day - near impossible. They had already sold out on their (often not working) website http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/ (or goto http://200.37.108.103/ because the DNS does not always resolve correctly), local ticket vendors in Cusco or Urubamba had no availability, we already had our train tickets from Urubamba to the Machu Picchu village. So we decided to take our chances.

Action(s) Performed:
Total Action(s): 1
Action # Recorded Date Type Hit(s) User Expand Details
10190 7/29/2011 10:00:32 AM Travel 3164 contact@danieljchu.com Some sample illustrations of Machu Picchu are shown below.     More ...

Resolution:
On arrival to the Machu Picchu village, we proceeded to the "Centro Cultural MachuPicchu" building, next to a church across the bridge from the train station. There we were told we could acquire tickets for that Sunday (we were there on Friday) and they would be accepted at the gate. Hesitantly we proceeded to buy the tickets, which required a passport number and S/.148 (~ $55 USD) - and walked our way up the mountain.

Now let me tell you, that is no walk for the faint of heart. It's straight up - not sure the distance, but I would say it took us about an hour and half to make it to the top, though it felt never ending. In our group some took the bus up, but we all took the bus back down! The day before we had seen some of the ruins in Urubamba, all very remarkable; however, nothing really compares to Machu Picchu, it truly was a beautiful site.

Make sure to obtain your tickets ahead of time, the path to Machu Picchu for us was a flight into Lima, Peru, connect to a flight from Lima to Cusco, we had a driver then take us from Cusco out to Urubamba where we stayed at a Starwood Luxury Collection hotel using $60 + 4,000 SPG points a day - that truly was an amazing hotel - this hotel, was also the location to pick up the train which is what took us to Machu Picchu village. The train trip took about 3 hours I think, for some reason the return took longer than the outbound trip.

Had we planned better, we would have also spent some time In Cusco, our limited glimpse of this city showed some beautiful architecture and I am sure some fascinating ruins outside the city. But Urubamba was pretty remarkable on its own.



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