Traveling With Kids to Machu Picchu

“I don’t wanna wake up” shatters the morning stillness. A similar refrain is repeated by the other child across the room, “leave me alone!” they shriek wrestling the bed covers back over their heads. The roar of the rushing river outside the bedroom river helps drown out their cries for help from the other guests, but we are certain that any moment we will hear a banging on our door.

Machu Picchu Terrace

It is 5 a.m. in Aguas Calientes, a small little town nestled in a deep gorge at the base of Machu Picchu, and we are bumping around the dark in a small room built for two people. The four of us, my wife and our two school-aged kids have traveled thousands of miles to walk the grounds of the 700 year old Machu Picchu. The first step is getting everyone out of bed and dressed to catch the 20 minute bus ride up the steep jungle hillside. As we wrestle, plead, cajole, and bribe our kids out of the warm beds in the middle of the morning, I think to myself how funny (not in a belly laugh sort of way) if our journey ended here. Instead of walking the ancient ruins and being mesmerized by all this mysterious city has to offer, our journey ends in a small, cold, cramped, overpriced hotel room at the base of Machu Picchu. I shrug off the thought…this will not be our outcome I tell myself as I go back to the task of trying to put socks on an 8 year old.

It is true that we have traveled thousands of miles to visit Machu Picchu, but really our journey is not much different than many that make this trek. But for each of us there is a personal journey to this place and for me this began when I was a kid. As a kid I was always fascinated with ghost towns and the old west. We visited many of these places, renting an RV during the summer and exploring the mining towns of California, Colorado, and other western states. I don’t remember the first time I heard of Machu Picchu, but I know that I was mesmerized by the pictures and the story and wanted to explore these ruins of South America just as I had done the ghost towns of the Wild West.

Machu Picchu Clouds

Somewhere along the line life got in the way and many dreams that I had as a child were lost. Years had passed since the last time I had even thought about Machu Picchu, probably spurred by a show on the Discovery Channel or National Geographic. I suppose that of all of the dreams that were lost between my idealistic years as a youth and my pragmatic years as a working adult, a trip to Machu Picchu was far down on the list of priorities, but that list was lost along with the dreams and now in my idealistic adulthood I can create, and change, and re-arrange all I want. I was not going to let a couple of kids that did not want to get out of a warm bed stand in my way!

That first sight of the city is indescribable! As the four of us stood there in the early morning mist, our minds trying to make sense of everything our eyes were seeing, I could not help but to sneak a peek at the expressions on the kid’s faces. For while this was my dream and not theirs, my dream included sharing this experience as a family and the expressions on the kids faces were as important to me as the beauty of Machu Picchu. All four us stood on the terrace, that 700 hundred years ago was used to grow corn, potatoes, or some other crop needed to feed the 600 inhabitants, each of us equally speechless with the amazing scene that stretched in every direction before our eyes. We had made it to Machu Picchu.

Gigi, Grant, Gina, Sean on Machu Picchu

The rest of the day proved to be very special. We hiked and climbed and jumped and sat and walked and crawled every inch of this magnificent city, around each corner was something new to explore. The morning clouds moved quickly over the mountain, and one minute you were surrounded by mist and not able to see a few feet in front of you and the next minute the cloud passed and the skies opened up to reveal Machu Picchu in all of its glory. I spent a good part of my day looking at the faces of the kids, wanting to see that they were enjoying themselves and that they felt some of what I was feeling. They enjoyed themselves, jumping, climbing, hiding, and laughing as we walked the grounds. But as much as they enjoyed themselves this was still my dream and I understood this.

It was not their decision to sell everything we owned, quit our jobs, move away from friends and family, and spend the next year or two living out of a suitcase traveling through Latin America…it was mine. And while they like having “dad around”, making the changes to our lifestyle would not have been their first choice. For me however it was for these exact moments that we made the decisions we made, to give up the money and the stuff to spend time with your kids, to live an adventure, and to follow some of those school-kid dreams.

Sean and Gina at Machu Picchu

As the four of us stood on a small path high above the city gazing at Machu Picchu stretching below us the feelings of emotion filled my heart and my eyes. It was moments like these that we traded for the career and cars, it was this feeling of being alive that we traded for 60 hour work weeks and hour long commutes, the sense of wonder and adventure of experiencing a 700 year old civilization as a family that replaced all of the busyness that we allow to fill up our lives and believe that this is our purpose.

I reached over and gave Grant a hug, he wiggled free. I bent over and gave Gigi a kiss on the head and a squeeze. A small kiss on the cheek and a hug for Gina. “What do you guys think of this view?” I asked….”I am hungry, when are we going to eat?” came the reply.

My dream fulfilled, my heart full of love, and reassurance that the decisions we made to change our lifestyle reaffirmed, we bound down the steep steps of this mysterious city high on a mountain top in the Andes looking for a place for a picnic lunch.