Machu Picchu with a two-year-old

“Are you seriously thinking about taking your son with you to Machu Picchu?” the man asked. It was late October, he had just returned from a visit to the Inca ruins, located high in the cloud forest, and was giving us advice about how best to acclimatize to the high elevation of nearby Cuzco (11,000 feet). We hadn’t considered not taking Simon; we pretty much do everything together and when Simon can’t walk around due to safety reasons, we carry him in a sling or carrier. 

“Well, if you have to take him, you’ll need to hold him the entire day,” he said. “There are so many drop offs. You will walk to the edge of a terrace and see the river far, far below. There are no guardrails. I would definitely not take a two-year-old there!”

We heard enough variants on this advice over several months that we reconsidered. We were planning to visit Machu Picchu twice, once when my parents came and then again when Sam’s mom came. What if we went on alternate days with the grandparents, and Simon stayed at base camp each day?

To get to Machu Picchu involves various travel steps. First, you fly to Cuzco. Then you proceed to Ollantaytambo either by leisurely wandering down the Sacred Valley over several days, stopping in small towns to visit their markets and hike the countryside, or you take a bus directly from Cuzco, about 2 hours. In Ollantaytambo, you catch a train to Aguas Calientes, about an hour and a half away. Then you take a short, 20 minute bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. You can do it in one very long day, but we wanted to take our time and wander.

We decided that Simon is a genial enough traveler – and accustomed to being carried while walking in traffic, when we need to get somewhere quick, etc. – that we would chance it. We also didn’t have enough time in our itinerary to spend two days at Machu Picchu, especially after we missed our first chance to visit when my parents came. We told Simon we would need to carry him for most of the day but that we would let him down when it was safe and that he could also tell us when he needed a break. 

Passing all the guides on our way to meet Sam. Simon strikes me as such a confident, growing kid in this picture.

It worked out pretty well. Simon was smart enough to grab his excavator toy over my protests, and so while the rest of us listened to our guide, Simon played in the dirt, loading rocks into his excavator and dumping them wherever he deemed necessary. Sam strategically placed himself between Simon and whatever drop off was closest.

Sara quietly supplying him with a stash of rocks

Simon was pretty oblivious to all the things we were blown away by: the views, the stonework, the history. I think he thought we were crazy for not playing in the dirt too.

Finally, he says, a bigger rock for the excavator!

Look at his gleeful self in Pisac, throwing stones into the can

I hadn’t fully realized just how much hiking up and down there was, so I was pretty exhausted. And as we traveled through the Sacred Valley, we visited multiple Inca ruins and were up and down stone steps and traversing stone terraces nearly every day. My muscles haven’t ached like that since certain swim workouts in college and track sprints in high school. People looked at us a little curiously and I wondered if everyone thought we were crazy. But the sling and carrier were invaluable with their smart redistribution of weight. 

Climbing up, up, up at the ruins at Ollantaytambo

It didn’t seem as scary to me as everyone had mentioned. Perhaps we had so many warnings that I was prepared for the absolute worst. As we were leaving, a large group of indigenous women and children were waiting in line to enter the ruins. I wondered what their child safety strategies entailed and whether people had advised them that they were crazy to bring their kids too.

In the end, instead of being hypervigilant all day, we were able to enjoy the time we had there and take in all the beauty and drama that Machu Picchu offered. The images speak for themselves.

We hiked out to the Inca Bridge and were shocked and amazed to see how much it clings to the cliffside. Do you see a little white dot on the left? That is a man's hat. Two people are standing there, looking at the bridge. The bridge is near the bottom of the picture, a tiny piece of wood on top of a rectangle.

This is a close up view of the bridge, a slab of wood on top of a stone wall. On either side of the bridge you can see what look like small stones jutting out. Those are steps to get up to the top of the bridge. Access to the bridge used to be unrestricted until several years ago when a hiker fell while trying to cross and subsequently died.

This is my favorite image of the day: the clouds blowing around the Caretaker's Hut