Aguas Calientes to Cusco - Shitting and Spewing

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WARNING: This entry contains scenes of a graphic nature. Readers with weak stomachs are advised to proceed to Day 20.

The BCP ATM still had no money when we gave it a go at 0700 so we walked through the local side of town in search of some cheap breakfast. With no money on our visa and all our funds on our National Bank Eftpos card we had no guarantee we’d be able to get any money out at all over the counter. With S40 to our names it was threatening to be a very long day.

A lady had set up a stall selling drinks and cheese sandwiches at S1 each, covering our desire for a cheap breakfast perfectly. I had a few cheese sandwiches and a drink made of coffee syrup and some sort of caramel substance that an American bloke eating with us told me would help “purge my system”.

We were second in the queue when the ATM was finally restocked at 0900, behind a German bloke that had passed us on the Mount Machu Picchu climb the previous day and in front of some Yankees that had been stuck with almost no money since the Friday. We were able to withdraw S700 and were climbing off the bus at the entrance gates of Machu Picchu by 1000.

We spent nearly three hours walking through the ruins taking photos and stopping regularly in some quiet spots to take in our surroundings. I was keen to walk the 60 minute path back to the Sun Gate but it was a very hot sunny day and Jo didn’t think she had it in her to make it. We could have stayed up there for another three hours or so but, having found such a good vantage point the previous day and with day-trippers flooding the entrance gates, we decided we’d seen the best that the place had to offer and mingling with the masses could not possibly improve on our experience.

Once back in Aguas Calientes we returned to Chayña Cafe for the S10 set menu and spent some time at an internet cafe prior to looking through the markets one final time before boarding our train home at 1700.

The moment we boarded I started to feel crook. We had barely been moving ten minutes when I had to go to the toilet. Things were round the wrong way - the solids were exiting through the mouth and nose whilst liquids (more I’m sure than I thought the body could hold) were exiting via the area usually reserved for solids. I couldn’t go back to my seat as this episode repeated every ten minutes for the three and a half hour journey. In between purging I had to sit on the ground at the rear of the carriage being thrown about on the rickety Peruvian rail tracks. It was the worst 3 1/2 hours of my life. The only highlight was a stop at Ollantaytambo where the train stopped to disembark some of the passengers and I managed to disembark the remaining contents of my stomach trackside.

About 30 minutes from Cusco the train pulled over at a station and I saw a lady holding a sign saying “S6 bus to Cusco - 15 minutes”. That was good enough for me. I jumped off signalling to Jo that we were bussing it from there. No sooner had Jo got off the train that I went into some sort of fever. I was freezing cold and couldn’t do anything except sit down and shiver. A few of the station workers took pity on me and gave me blankets whilst a lady found a bucket - one I used almost immediately. Another bloke found some rubbing alcohol and made me sniff it to keep me awake. They called a taxi that arrived about 20 minutes later.

The lady came with us in the taxi and got off when we stopped at a Pharmacy and the driver gave me a pill to take. By this stage I was ready to try anything so I took it with some water. After what felt like forever we arrived at the hostel where the taxi driver asked for S30 (NZ$15) - not the S13 the locals at the station had suggested we would pay. Luckily I managed to go to sleep almost immediately, waking only a few times, too scared to fart for fear of drowning myself in the sheets.

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