Are there shorter or easier routes to the top, or is the one you traversed actually the easiest and/or the one and only?
How did you come back? the same Inca Trail for 5 days? I assume that there was no helicopter waiting for the visitors.
Related questions, and I'll answer both in a single post.
While Machu Picchu was the object of our trek, it was not solely an uphill route (e.g. it was not at "the top"). Our 5-day trek followed the traditional route of the Inca Trail (Camino Inka: see a
good article in wikipedia), which in its prime stretched 40,000 km (~25,000 miles) along the length of the Incan Empire from Quito, Ecuador to Santiago, Chile. The Incans did not use the wheel so the trail itself is to a large extent stone stairsteps, and their lack of a written language makes the engineering projects of the Camino, the tambos (inns), fortresses, and temples, and larger sites like Saqsayhuaman, Ollantaytambo, or Machu Picchu even more astounding.
Our trekking route took us past at least half a dozen major archeological sites, and brought us a geographic, human, and historical perspective into which to put Machu Picchu when we finally arrived there. Most visitors will arrive there from the town of Aguas Calientes, which is served by a popular train line from the city of Cuzco, and from which half-hour (scary) bus rides zig-zag up the mountainside to reach the top where the sanctuary is located. I found someone's accurate photo of the buses' route here:
Our trekking group arrived at Machu Picchu sort of "from behind and above", in the early afternoon. We had rooms at the Sanctuary Lodge which is at the top of the mountain just outside the site gates (Only 30 rooms! You can see it at the top of the bus route in the photo above, with a dark green roof.), so we checked in there, returned to the site to explore, stayed overnight, explored more the next day, and finally took the (scary) bus ride down the hill to Aguas Calientes, from which we took the train into Cuzco. So no, I did not have to hike back for 5 days, nor did I have to arrange for a helicopter ride out. (Thankfully!)
There are other trekking routes which end at Machu Picchu, including some that take only 2 days. Most of the popular trekking routes are a day or two shorter than our route. So, there are options, and most of the folks who visit the site have not hiked to reach there.
--Diane.
