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Published: February 29th 2008
Sacred Valley
L amazingly caught this out of a very fast moving bus!At long last we bring to the world another update… but not strictly according to original plans. Some of you will be expecting this to be coming (by way of a drunken haze) from some winery or other in Chile. That was Plan A, but my how things change so quickly.
Some of you will be expecting this to be coming from Scotland (and no doubt are still expecting us to visit!). That was Plan B, which was axed almost immediately after it went into action. We are now on Plan C… current location… Saint Louis MO... USA.
We are home, and the trip is... ‘over’.
But we will get to that in due course… for now, we have fab stories and fun pics of our last days in Peru… and the glorious Machu Picchu. What a place to end our trip!
Our arrival in Cusco was delayed a day; having paid for a ticket all the way through from Abancay, it turned out that the bus was overbooked and we had to disembark in Andahuaylas and wait overnight for another bus to take us on. Not a disaster, but a bit of a let down, as Andahuaylas
Andahuaylas at 5AM
The town with not much on offer except a good bakery and great Andean views. is very tiny; asides from a very impressive bakery, and an extremely nice and friendly hotelier, there is little for us to talk about. We also had to get up before 5am for the 3rd consecutive day, in order to catch the bus the next day! Those of you that know us well (or at all!) will understand how things were starting to go there! Given the two previous experiences of 6am bus departures (leaving 2 hours late) we almost decided to just lie in… but this time the bus left promptly at 6am, so we’re lucky we didn’t!
We arrived in Cusco around midday, and hiked, huffing and puffing, uphill with our packs for about 2 miles to get to our hotel of choice, which was expensive for us, but apparently reasonable for Cusco. We were welcomed heartily by ‘Eddie’, a friendly guy who spoke a lot of English and who Karaoked at full blast, alone, in the upstairs kitchen between noon and 2pm every day! He was pretty good though, to be fair. Or at least… well… he held nothing back!
Cusco is a very pretty town (see pics) of largely colonial architecture, which has been
Cusco's Plaza de Armas
One of the many bustling squares in Cusco, surrounded by fancy restaurants, stores and churches. ‘placed’ on top of the ancient foundations of the original Inca town (the original structures were of course torn down to stymie hedonistic sun-worship and the old culture etc). Our first sight of the remaining Inca stonework was walking through enclosed alleys of immaculately fitting stones. The walls inclined slightly away from you, and made for fantastic views down the lengths of the alleys.
There are many ruins and archaeological sites to see in and around Cusco, and we spent our time walking to the nearby jagged wall fortifications of Saqsaywaman, which were built to represent the teeth of a giant puma, represented in the whole by the town and area around. We also walked out to more ruins at Q’enqo and stumbled on another natural cave/rock formation site that will have to remain nameless since we did not write it down and it is not in any of our books.
We happened to be in town during a home leg of a Copa de los Libertadores tie, with the hometown favourites Cienciano hosting Uruguayan Montevideo Wanderers. Pretty amusing to see that the flair, passion, and panache of South American futbol embodies itself in such an exotic name!
We got tickets to the game, which turned out to be very competitive, and very entertaining. We were rained on solidly for the whole game, but thanks to a steady stream of plastic poncho vendors and colourful (disturbingly loud) flares and firecrackers, the atmosphere was not dampened, and the home side was roared on to an impressive 1-0 victory. It seems they must have won the second leg in Montevideo too, as they are scheduled to play Flamengo in the next round. Plenty of 8-12yr old girls and boys seemed to make their fair share of cash peddling candy and cigarettes too!
While Cusco is a big town, with a lot of tourism, it managed to convey to us an honest, ‘real’ feeling; the town itself is divided by plazas, in which nearby residents collect at all hours in small local fiestas and various social events. The thing to do (being Carnival and all) seemed to be for each plaza to compete for the title of loudest and most persistent firecracker display, a daily event held almost continually between 5am and midnight. And… of course… always be alert for the dreaded Guerra de Agua… the risk of bombardment is
Colonial Cusco
A typical sight in Cusco: colonial-style architecture and a church in the background. everywhere!
This brings us to the end of Plan A… and the beginnings of plan B… we received some sad news in Cusco with the death of L’s granny back home in Scotland. We were lucky to be in a situation where we had been checking mail frequently, and with a bit of work we were able to change our flights to get back to the USA early, and then onward to Scotland to attend the funeral. It turned out that we still had a few days in Peru before having to leave, and decided to go on to Machu Picchu (our last remaining ‘goal’ of great significance), but to forego the last 3 weeks of our trip, which was originally scheduled for wine-guzzling in Chile (an activity that, had we chosen to pursue in favour of attending the funeral, would no doubt have been highly approved of by the late and great Margaret Oddy!). It was a very sad time for us both, but we made the best of our last few days, and were looking forward to genuinely celebrating Granny’s incredible life with friends and family back home…
On our way to Machu Picchu (MP), we
stopped off at some very highly recommended Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo. The town itself was small and somewhat abused by large tour groups/buses as a transit point to get the train to/from Aguas Calientes (MP), but the ruins were amazing and we found a fantastic little restaurant run entirely by women who laughed and joked boisterously with one another all night. We had the best food of our whole visit to Peru there, and were glad to find some very reasonably priced and tasty red wine to wash it down with.
The train to Aguas Calientes was nothing special. We were glad to have gone for the (slightly) less extortionate option of the backpacker train, as it seemed that there was little to see by adding skylights in the roof such as the expensive vistadome service has. The journey was remarkably short (just a bit over an hour or so) for the $40-something per person that we had to pay, a sum for which we traveled by bus the whole way through the Mantaro Valley. We hid out in our hotel the whole day of our arrival in Aguas Calientes; it rained and rained and rained, like never before,
Typically friendly Peruvian dog
This dog was just outside our hotel window. Everytime we opened it up, he was there ready and waiting to rip our heads off. Good thing there were bars on the windows! the entire day. We questioned the decision to come here in the mountains during the rainy season, and were not savouring the next day’s excursions through the runs of Machu Picchu during such a torrent. We also discovered something rather unsettling; having bought our tickets for the site, and checked into our hotel room, we discovered that the only ATM in town was broken, which would leave us in dire straits; no train ticket back, and no cash to get one. We were assured that it would be up and running in the afternoon when we returned from the ruins the next day, but were nervous about the whole thing; this was the only time we had anything we had to get back for, and the only time that we had ever been on a tight time schedule. It was a new feeling for us on this trip… and our concerns were duly justified with time.
Our day at Machu Picchu started well, with a great breakfast of leftover pizza; being out of useable cash (nowhere would exchange our emergency dollars and pounds, as they were not BRAND NEW), we had gone to a more expensive pizza restaurant that
El es muy guapo!
A very good looking shoe shiner. A usual Andean smile...warm and genuine. took VISA cards the night before and had ordered double to feed us the next day. We hopped on a bus for the winding 8km road up to the ruins and with promises to ignore the nagging financial issue we entered the ruined town filled with hope and positivity. We were greeted by… FOG. It wasn’t raining yet, but the fog was impenetrable. We sat looking out over the town below us, barely visible through the haze, and tried to take it in for about an hour. We thought that the whole venture was going to be a bust, until suddenly, in the space of just a few seconds, the fog blew off, revealing bright blue sky, dazzling sunshine, and the most spectacular views we’ve had the joy to sit down and experience. We wandered the ruins in glorious sunny splendour for hours, marveling at the most impressive ‘completeness’ of the whole place. The only thing ‘ruinous’ about the place is that the buildings do not have roofs; the wood and straw/leaves have long since rotted, but the stone structures themselves are perfectly intact. We made our way to the other side of the site and exited by way of
Another kind of local
A llama? An alpaca? We never did figure out the difference. a registration booth to climb the precipitous Mount Wayna Picchu; a steep and sometimes hairy climb through jungle and over rock, which afforded the most awesome views over MP from the top. It took us about 35 minutes to get up, where we ate more pizza, and returned back down with the last slice in hand. We got quite a few jealous glares from ascenders as they puffed their way past us and up. We discovered that apparently it is not allowed to bring food in, so these poor souls had likely been roaming the site and mountainside with no food having had it confiscated at the gate. We got lucky there I guess!
On returning to Machu Picchu itself it began raining, but only lightly, and we continued on our rounds through the various sections of the town, getting lost in the royal palaces and prison quarters, and stopping often to gaze out over the vertical drops and steep agricultural terraces that line the whole site. We took a ridiculous amount of pictures, and it was difficult to put the camera away for long, but essential to do so to take in the grandeur of what was on
La Guerra del Agua!
We ended up sitting on a bench next to a family in order to escape the sights of this young soldier. It was entertaining watching their techniques and fervour in filling up their balloons. offer. It was easily the best ‘sight’ that we have seen in our lifetimes, and our words seem to do it horrible injustice. Hopefully the pics will help, but we highly recommend a visit there if it is at all possible! We were impressed by the lack of people there, although this will no doubt have been in part due to the fact that we were there ‘offseason’, and had planned our arrival to coincide with the first day that the ‘Inca Trail’ was closed, and so no trekkers were arriving.
We hiked back down to Aguas Calientes, conscious of the time in an effort to be back before the bank closed, just in case the ATM had not been fixed. We made it, but even from afar we feared the worst; a large disorganized group of tourists could be seen looking lost in the general vicinity of the bank. The ATM spoke the same few words: “Temporarily Out of Service”. The bank was a lost cause; cash advances could be made on VISA credit cards only, not on the Mastercard credit card, or the Visa debit cards that we were armed with. We were screwed. The train company
Saqsaywaman
An example of the more impressive wall formations--very smooth rounded edges and perfectly formed together. would accept only cash, and only Soles. The Western Union in town was for some inexplicable reason completely non-functional. The few hotels and restaurants that did take cards would not give up cash, and there were no tour agencies or online systems through which to buy a train ticket. The common reaction (which would ordinarily be absolutely fine and acceptable to us) was “Oh well... Stay another night. ATM will be fixed soon. No Worries”. But we had a flight, and had one day to get back. We resorted to begging. Literally. We took up the mantle of just walking around asking tourists to somehow trust us and pay for our tickets on the promise that we, as complete strangers, would in fact somehow return their money to them somehow. It didn’t seem likely, but the very first people we encountered helped us out. Ryan, Patrick, Shauna and (we think, sorry if we’ve forgotten one of you!) Meghan. Ryan paid for our ticket on the condition of traveling with them (a hasty 15 minutes to check out of the hotel and pack!) and paying him back on arrival at the next town (which thankfully had a functional ATM!). We were
Jesus overlooks Cusco
As with most other Peruvian towns, there is a large statue of Jesus with arms outstretched over the town. so grateful and couldn’t believe our luck.
So we made it back to Ollantaytambo, and again visited the ‘friendly femme’ restaurant for dessert and a mysteriously auto-refilling glass of red wine. We left with a big free aloe ‘leaf’ for B’s pretty outrageous sunburn (we were so worried about rain that we forgot the ‘screen!). We settled in for the night, and looked forward to a relaxing trip back to Cusco and on to Lima the next day, where we spent our time reflecting on the trip as a whole and recovering from the recent shocks and stresses we had endured over a ½ jar of the best and strongest pisco sour we’d managed to find. We ate a hearty (if not tasty) meal of alpaca and guinea pig; something we had promised ourselves we would do since it seems to be a national delicacy.
Plan B went into action with our return to Chicago from Lima, and an onward flight to Edinburgh. It was far from smooth, or pleasant. We endured delays due to a volcanic eruption in Ecuador, then nightmarish difficulty in changing our flights from Chicago to Edinburgh (thanks Mary!) and we tried desperately (and
Peruvian women
These women were conveniently waiting at Saqsaywaman for us to take their picture. They are wearing their traditional skirts and the 'baby backpacks' tied around their shoulders, which can still be seen everywhere in the Central Highlands. successfully, thanks Cathy and Soni!) to avoid a second night on a cold airport floor. It’s funny that we got through the whole trip for almost 10 months without any incident, and all of a sudden in the space of days were encountering every disaster that everyone always dreads! Everything evens out in the end huh? But, we arrived in plenty of time for the funeral in Edinburgh. Plan B was struck down quite suddenly however, with the news that B’s granddad had died the day before L’s granny’s funeral. We changed flights again and after only a few days in Edinburgh returned home to St. Louis immediately after the funeral, to attend a second.
The loss of our grandparents is sad, but we take pleasure in knowing that they had long, joyful lives. They were both great story tellers of the events of their lives and had many friends and family to surround them throughout it all. We only wish we will be so lucky in life. L’s granny and B’s grandpa were both inspirations to each of us (especially in going on our trip) and their deaths have only reinforced to us how significant our trip has
View of Cusco and Saqsaywaman
This was taken from the nameless caves outside of Cusco. We had a nice walk up the hills with a rewarding view of Cusco and Saqsaywaman. been. We are glad we decided to ‘take the risk’; to travel on our terms and see a little bit of the world. It has been an amazing experience and we have no regrets about it. Except maybe having to stay in Guwahati, India…twice!
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Dave
non-member comment
the end of a long journey
Hi Guys, The pictures of MP are stunning, and it must of been ace watching the fog roll back to reveal the remains. A fitting end to your travels That guinea pig reminds me of Aliens 4 when a baby alien explodes out of Ripley