How we became bird watchers

Machu Picchu is on almost every travelers list of places to go. Rediscoverd in 1911 by an American looking for Inkan Ruins, Machu Picchu was never found by the ransacking Spanish so it is still in amazing shape.
Just a teeny bit of history here. The Inkans existed in these parts of the world for about 300 years from 1200 AD to 1500 or so before they were crushed by Small Pox and egotistical Spanish conquistadors. If you notice, it wasn't that long ago. The Inkans created a sort of Socialistic system (although they had slaves too) where communities grew food together and shared it. They were masters of agriculture as well as masters of stonework.

The ruins are everywhere in these parts. Since they chose to build with granite blocks perfectly (and I mean perfectly) fitted together, many of their buildings and terraces still exist throughout the area.
Machu Picchu is just one ruin, albeit a particularly aesthetic and intact one. To get a sense of Incan ruins and life, one does not need to visit Machu Picchu but visiting seemed like an important thing to do to share in some sort of Global Psyche. When Machu Picchu is referenced, I now know what it means and that feels important.
Because Machu Picchu is such a desirable place to visit, it is a bit of a goat rodeo getting to it. The Peruvian government has done a good job of minimizing impact but there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get there.
Here is what we had to do:
Drive 50 miles from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo and park the bikes at Los Portadas Hostal.
Buy a train ticket from Ollantaytambo to Aquas Calientes for 60 dollars per person (ouch). There is no road to Aquas Calientes (which is the closest town to Machu Picchu).
Buy tickets in Aquas Calientes for Machu Picchu (45 dollars per person)
[Megan can't focus on the camera because she is looking at something fuzzy in front of us] Wake up at 4:30 am and catch a 5:15 bus from Aquas Calientes up the mountain to Machu Picchu (8 dollars per person) arriving at 5:45 am.

[and that fuzzy thing is a lama] Wait in line with 1000 other people doing the same thing as us.
Hope to get a stamp that allows us to climb up Wayna Picchu (the mountain overlooking MP). We got the last stamp.
Walk around MP for the entire day marveling at how much work it must have taken to make this place.
Too cheap to pay for the ride down, we walked back to Aquas Calientes straining our knees on the endless granite steps.

Machu Picchu was amazing. I recommend everyone go and see it. It was worth all of the effort to get there and I will never forger the site of misty granite mountains with terraces, grain storage, and houses perched along the cliffs with stonework that is truly unbelievable. Despite the thousands of people who visit everyday, the place had a magical charm that sticks with you.
One thing I was particularly impressed by was the "drawbridge" on the side of the cliffs. This must of have been for defensive purposes. In this picture in the background lower right you can see how they built the path along the cliff and then left a gap in it. Pretty cool.
But how did we become birdwatchers?
A Seattle climber named Jim Sykes up and moved to Peru about 6 or 7 years ago. He stationed himself in Huaraz, opened a Cinema, met a fantastic woman named Gladys and is now a Peruvian resident.
A few months ago, they decided to bail on Huaraz and start a birdwatching business near Machu Picchu called Lost City Bird Guides. There are year round tourists in MP, and beside the ruins, there really isn't much else "to do" in the immediate area.

They took us out for a day of birding in the high jungle/ cloud forest of the area. They handed us each a pair of binoculars and out we went looking for feathered creatures. And there were a lot. Birding is an interesting past time. You look up in the trees for moving things, then try to find said moving things in your binoculars. After you see it, you identify it before it flies off. Jim and Gladys are really good at it. Their enthusiasm for finding all sorts of species spilled over to us and we found ourselves looking every which was for yellow, brown, blue, red, spotted, striped creatures. They could identify the birds in seconds and tell us all about the critters, if they were rare, what they eat, where they live and so on.
In these parts, the bird everyone wants to see if the Cock of the Rock (this is the actual English name). You can't always see them, but on this day we saw both Males and Females. In fact Megan spotted one independently and was pretty proud.
The whole package of going birding and visiting Machu Picchu made for a great vacation from riding. If you are reading this and at all plan to go to Machu Picchu, plan to spend an extra day in Aguas Calientes (actually a nice little town with no cars) and go birding. It is so much richer than just popping in for a quick visit to the ruins.