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Published: September 19th 2011
Friday 16th September
This is the day!! Its the realisation that after so many years of dreaming we could one day be standing in Machu Picchu, that this is THE day!! I was so excited I could wet myself! Raced down to brekky. Nobody to be found. We walk out to the kitchen to try and find someone, look at the state of the kitchen, grab a bread roll, decide nah, this is disgusting, take our bags and we're on our way! This place is the crappiest place we have been so far.
Having left Crapsville behind us, we head off on the bus for the 30 min ride to Macchu Picchu. We arrive at about 7am, and discover we can actually go into the ruins and come back out to meet our guide so we take that opportunity.
As we pass through the security and along the walk a few short minutes, my eyes are welling with tears, and as we round the next corner, there it is.
This glorious, mystical Lost City of the Incas that we have only ever seen in pictures. It is so much more than you can imagine and any of the pictures you
have seen just do not do it justice as it cant all be put in to the one picture.
I make no apologies for the amount of photos I took today (292 LOL). Absolutely everything is an ' oh look at that!!!' kodak moment. We have 2 hours with our guide Eddy who is fabulous and then its off to explore on our own. We have met a gorgeous Irish girl, Sinead, and the three of us have spent the day sharing some stories and laughs in this amazing, mystical city. Sinead heads home to London tomorrow, so what a way to finish a holiday in SA.
We headed back in to Aguas for a late lunch and a drink before Sinead headed off then its just a matter of killing some time before we get the train back to Olly to pick up our big packs and catch the bus. Also had a bit of fried rice for dinner at around 7 to kill some time, which may or may not have been the wrong thing to do.
After arriving back In Ollantaytambo at around 11pm, we search for our driver, who is late.
It would appear as though
the other names on his ticket were searching for him too, as they are nowhere to be found. He's a loud, large, arrogant s.o.b, who demands we follow him to the mini bus, and while we do this, he is scouting for extra bodies on the bus, yelling "Cusco, Cusco" at the top of his voice, so before we know it we have another 8 or so stragglers trying to hitch a ride on our bus. By the time we get to the bus, he has also located the other missing passengers, and everyone starts piling in to the bus. He finally
gets out of our way and yells rudely at us to get in, and I bring to his attention that there are no seats left on the bloody bus for us to sit in!!! So then a big discussion arises as to who should and shouldnt be on the bus. It goes on for 10 minutes. One of the guys speaks English and he tells me that the other people refuse to get off the bus. I tell them "Its not that hard! Get everyone off the bus, call the listed people on to the bus and then
if there are any seats left, they can fight over it. I want to get back to Cusco now!" Nothing is this simple apparently.
So we tell them we will walk in to town to get our packs because at this stage we're worried we aren't going to be able to pick up our bags if everything is locked up. We arrive at Hotel Sol at the same time as the mini bus, still packed with seat scabs, pulls up alonside us. Shane has rung the doorbell and banged on the door of the hotel to no avail. There is still someone up in the sister hotel next door, so he comes out, rings the bell, bangs on the door and then makes a call. Finally, the door opens and this 4 foot nothing, beligerent security guard comes out wiping the sleep from his eyes, annoyed that we have woken him and Shane explains he needs our bags and apologises for the lateness of the hour. He starts muttering something, and my English speaking friend explains to me he is saying he isnt allowed to let anyone into the building who doesnt stay there. One of them finally gets
this through to him and he then decides he'll call someone to check on his 20yr old nokia phone that is taller than he is!! I am furious at this stage. Finally he lets Shane in and the whole process takes less than 60 seconds.
I go to get on the mini bus and some little bloke grabs Shanes pack and they tell us to follow him up the hill toward the centre of town. Our arrogant bus driver explains his bus is full and he has put us on another bus. I might of have been a bitch at this point and used a couple of expletives and gone on a bit of a tirade at this point, but what does it matter? Apparently they dont understand English anyway. I also might have blown a gasket storming up the hill to catch a bus, that is already full of people, who are now also waiting on us. At 2am we fall in to our bed and sleep.
Saturday 17th September
Shane has awoken with gastro this morning that is getting progessively worse. Sadly, he is unable to multi task as I had to on Monday, and
is I sense, a little distressed as he is not sure how to manage both of these tasks. I know it has gotten worse as the groaning has started. I have prepared him a hot water bottle and left him while I try and finalise our apartment in Lima for tomorrow. That done, I checked on the patient who has had a sleep and feels like some lemonade. So I walk in to town to get some provisions. Its a gorgeous day and I'm feeling like I belong just meandering down to the square.
He is currently upstairs on the computer checking the football scores! His recovery is remarkable!! Perhaps it has something to do with the level of care he received hey???
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Anu
Anu
tour details
Hi ! can u please email me your itinerary? (organiser, route, hotel etc).. keen on this trip...need help! jealous after seeing your pics :) is sept the bets month? clear weather?? do write back.. thanx Anu (India)