Station to station

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I had twice tried to buy train tickets to Aguas Calientes, the town closest to Machu Picchu, from the main PeruRail ticket office in Cusco - once mid-morning and once at 7:30AM - and both times had been met with an untidy queue of tourists snaking out of the door. Inside was a further sea of would-be ticket purchasers, numbers indicative of a multi-hour wait to actually get to a ticket clerk. Life's too short for this sort of time-wasting, so we decided to head further up the line to Ollantaytambo to try our luck there.

A cramped bus journey and local-subsidising taxi ride later, we were in the village and immediately beetled along to the train station. There is only a handful of trains each day between Cusco and Aguas Calientes, but plenty from Ollantaytambo, for reasons I can only assume are due to a lack of passing spots on the line between Cusco and Ollantaytambo. The queue at the ticket office contained precisely 1 group, and not only did we not have to wait long but we were able to obtain seats on the trains we wanted.

I should mention a little about the route to Machu Picchu. The site lies in the Sacred Valley, which is so narrow in parts that, beyond Ollantaytambo, there is no road. This limits your transport options. The classic way to arrive at Machu Picchu is by walking the Inca Trail, a multi-day trek taking in some of the mountain scenery in the region, however that requires booking months in advance due to a limit on the number of hikers allowed on the trail each day. There are other treks that also culminate at Machu Picchu but, at this time of year, the countryside is essentially a parade of foreign backpackers.

So if walking is not, for whatever reason, appealing, you're left with the train, which is the option chosen by the vast majority of tourists. The company that operates the line, PeruRail, has little to learn about either price-gouging or pandering to foreigners (and is effectively operating a monopoly, despite that being illegal under the Peruvian constitution). The cheapest return from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, a journey of 47km lasting about 1.5 hours, costs $62 (coincidentally this is the same price as a single from New York to Boston, a journey of 350km lasting about 4 hours). The line also contains locals-only trains, which cost a fraction of that of the tourist services (and are subsidised by PeruRail), however tourists can not use the local trains and vice versa. PeruRail is 50% owned by Orient Express Hotels Ltd, so these profits are not staying in Peru. OEH also owns the luxury hotel next to the entrance to the ruins, where you can pay $800 or more for a room that doesn't even have a view of the site.

Ollantaytambo has its own attractions apart from simply being a waypoint on the trip to Machu Picchu. Originally a lodging for Inca nobility, it was where the Incas retreated to after they had been defeated by the Spanish in Cusco, and was the site of a rare victory in battle by the natives over their European oppressors. There are several sets of impressive terraces, of a higher quality than many we'd seen and demonstrating some of the architectural innovations that enabled the creation of small micro-climates, allowing the growth of plants that would not otherwise have been able to survive at this altitude or ambient temperature. The terraces were crawling with tour groups, leading to logjams here and there where the path was only 1 person wide.

Opposite the main terracing was another hill sporting some granaries at its higher elevations. LA Woman climbed up to the top and reported that it had taken a great deal of effort to imagine that the town was laid out in the shape of a corn cob (as it supposedly is - similarly, Cusco is meant to be in the shape of a puma).

Our train to Aguas Calientes was bizarrely empty, with only 4 of us in a 58-seat carriage. The scenery was impressive, with the towering mountains on either side enclosing the narrow valley. Perhaps as a nod to the European half of its ownership, PeruRail avoided an obvious panpipe soundtrack and instead gave us Richard Clayderman. Aguas Calientes and the trip to Machu Picchu will be blogged separately.

The return journey to Ollantaytambo 2 days later was a rather different experience, with every seat being taken and the luggage rack stacked high with backpacks. Part way through the journey, we were subjected to certainly the strangest entertainment I've ever had on a train. First, the luggage guy donned a traditional Andean balaclava and pranced up and down the aisle, inviting people to stroke his stuffed llama. Then a deafening techno version of "Dancing Queen" came over the speakers and the 2 carriage attendants put on a fashion show, modelling a variety of alpaca products as they sashayed up and down the swaying train as best they could. If serving turkey sandwiches to gringos wasn't enough of a trial, I would have thought that being wolf-whistled at by them would be sufficient incentive to tender one's resignation.

Once back in Ollantaytambo, we immediately caught a tourist bus back to Cusco.

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Photos

Sunflower
Main plaza

Sculpture
Hostal Munay Tika

View of the town
As seen from the terraces

Patchwork fields
As seen from the terraces

Sculpture
Main plaza

View of the main square
From near the granaries

View of the town
From near the granaries