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Published: August 2nd 2012
We had unfortunately left our Machu Picchu planning a bit late, so were running around like a couple of headless chickens the first day in Cusco. We had also idiotically decided to go to a major international tourist attraction, slap bang during the time that all the travel guides advise you NOT to go! That is, during mid high season and right around the time of Peru’s Independence Day – 28 July!
Oh well...
Machu Picchu only allows 2500 people a day and tickets have to be reserved online then paid at the Cusco municipal office within 6 hours. Tickets also book out at least 2 days prior. There is also no vehicular access to the town of Aguas Caliente, the tourist town below Machu Picchu, so you either have to book a train in, or bus it to the end of the road and walk the last 20km along the railway line.
We managed to reserve our tickets online and the proceeded to walk around Cusco trying to find the darned Municipal office to pay for them! No signage, nothing. Until we popped our heads around the one corner and saw an A4 size paper with yellow
Camouflaged Municipal Office
It took us forever to find this office to purchase our Machu Picchu tickets! Absolutely no signagehighlighter “Machu Picchu →”! Yah, we finally paid and got our tickets!!
We also managed to book seats on the train, but were forced to buy the more expensive ‘Vista dome’ class (the train carriage has windows in the roof to see the massive valley cliffs) as there were no cheaper options left.
With all this secured, the very next day we packed our 2 small backpacks with 2 days supplies and headed off early in the morning to find a local taxi to take us to Ollantaytambo (I didn’t mention that we couldn’t get onto the train from Cusco, but only from Ollanta – 100km from Cusco). Our Spanglish managed to get us to the local taxi rank where we were crammed into a
collectivo (typical combo taxi) with all locals and headed off for the 2 hour journey, stopping to pick up and drop off a good few passengers along the way. We eventually arrived at a parking lot filled with a bunch of other taxis and everyone piled out. James and I sat in the combi for awhile wondering if we should get out or not…when the driver eventually walked back to the combi,
mumbled something to us and pointed at another taxi in the parking lot. Aah, we had to transfer for the last leg of the journey!
We eventually got into Ollantaytambo and were met with a jam packed main plaza. It was an Independence Day town festival (Peru’s Independence Day is 28 July), which included a long procession of dancers, brass bands and floats parading in front of what must have been the Mayor, or possibly the provincial Premier, or maybe even the President! There were a lot of people on the platform, wearing a whole lot of bling! We settled in a little coffee shop and happily watched the parade.
Ollantaytambo is a beautiful little village set in a valley with 2 massive Inca fortresses dominating the two overlooking cliffs. I was once again fascinated by the Inca stone work and blown away by how the hell they built the fortresses on the steepest cliffs! The town also still uses aqueducts built by the original Inca settlers.
After wondering around the Inca fortress and enjoying the village life, we boarded the fancy PeruRail train to Machu Picchu. The hour n half trip took us through the stunning
Ollantaytambo
Inca Royal estate Urubamba River valley with its steep granite cliffs, which changed from dry grasslands to a lush tropical cloud forest (a forest that is characterized by persistent low level cloud clover – I add this because I did not believe James’s original – and correct – explanation for a random tropical forest amidst dry areas!).
Arriving in Aguas Caliente (or Machu Picchu town) we avoided the touts and zoomed down the main strip looking for some decent (and cheap) accommodation for the night. Fortunately we stumbled upon a fabulous little hostel right at the end of the road, and booked a room overlooking the river! Aguas Caliente’s main purpose is to accommodate, feed and curio-sell to the thousands of tourists that pass through it on their way into or out of Machu Picchu. We have never seen sooo many pizza and Mexican food restaurants in one place in all our life – and dare say we won’t ever again! The other major business is massaging! Can’t tell you how many times I had massage pamphlets shoved into my hands walking the 5 minutes to the other end of the street. This obviously appeals to the people coming off the Inca
Peru Rail
Our fancy ride to Machu Picchu Trail.
**Side note: we didn’t do the popular Inca Trail, because besides it being sold out like a year in advance, we felt that it was very overpriced and terribly over used. We’re doing enough trekking to make up for it!
After an expensive tasteless pizza dinner we climbed into bed and set our alarm for 4am. This would get us up and ready in time to queue at the bus stop for the first busses going up to Machu Picchu at 5:30. We weren’t the only ones with this idea and joined an already long queue for the hour’s wait. We were provided with some entertainment when a couple in front of us got queue rage and started shouting at a tour group who decided to wedge in with their one fellow traveler who obviously got to the queue first and was ‘keeping their place’. Eish, queuing for Machu Picchu is serious business! There was even a guy chanting “Back of the line! Back of the line!”
The bus trip was a quick 20 minutes, following a steep gravel road with countless switchbacks and then standing in yet another queue to enter the Machu Picchu site
at 6:00.
Never the less, with all that being said – walking through the entrance and up the beautiful Inca steps to the viewing terrace, and seeing the sun rise over Machu Picchu, was pretty spectacular. Besides the large amount of people that had joined us in being the first people up there, it was still relatively quiet compared to what it would be later, so we sat awhile and just took everything in – enjoying the ‘solitude’.
Machu Picchu means “Old Peak” in the local Quechua language and was built in the mid 1400’s, at the height of the Inca Empire. The site is made famous because, besides being a large stone city, sitting on a steep, pretty inaccessible pointy ridge, it was also undiscovered by the Spanish during their conquest – thus it remained relatively intact before being discovered by the outside world in the early 1900’s.
We wondered around for some time taking in all the buildings, terraces and stonework, sneakily overhearing talks from guided groups (yes yes, we were too cheap to fork out the US$100 guide fee). We eventually found a quiet pozzie on a terrace and lay in the shade chilling
and reading our books. It was a memorable morning, every now and then looking up and taking in the stunning views around us.
We had the lunch time train to catch back to Ollantaytambo, so made our way back down to Aguas and found the little town in the full throws of Independence Day celebrations, with more parades and bling wearing officials! In the chaos of the crowds James claims he spotted a yeti and even got a blurry photo of it. Take a look and make up your own mind.
We got back to Cusco, however only after an eventful ride back where the driver of the collectivo lost his side mirror along the one pass, and then decided he needed to look for it by driving slowly back down the pass…needless to say, it was a much longer ride!
Overall it was a fantastic experience and one that we won’t soon forget!
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Michelle
non-member comment
Looks amazing! I am sooo jealous