Advertisement
Published: September 30th 2009
Aric was sharing one of his latest travel memories with us: ´The other night I was taking a night bus in Bolivia, we were going down this steep hill and all of a sudden the breaks gave out. They had to pump them up and up and you could smell the burnt rubber in the bus. I was thinking, man, what´s gonna happen to me tonight.´ The three of us just left Cusco for Santa Maria - a station on our way to Machu Picchu - in a crappy public bus, it was 9 p.m. We started to descend the first of the many slopes on the route (Cusco is at 3300m, Santa Maria at ´mere´2000). ´Man, couldn´t you wait until we are out of the bus and have breakfast to tell me this ´, was my natural response. But it wasn´t for the horror story anyway, but for the unpaved roads and the bumpy ride that we didn´t sleep all night.
6 uncomfortable hours later, at 3 o´clock in the morning, we arrived at Santa Maria. 5 Peruian guys approached us immediatly, talking to us in fast Spanish, we couldn´t understand them. After we kept saying ´tranquillo, tranquillo´for a
minute or so, they finally gave us some space and time to figure out what was going on. The guys were the drivers of the ´colectivos´, mini-busses that would wait until they are filled up and take us to our next stop: Santa Teresa. We made a deal with one of the drivers, but had to wait another our until we departed - we spent it making jokes with the drivers.
It was 5 when we finally arrived at Santa Teresa, the ride wasn´t any better. The driver went as fast as he could on the dirt road, the cliffs next to the buses´ tires didn´t make you feel any more secure. We were good for breakfast and went to a restaurant next to the bus station. It was already open, since the miners of the area started their working day there - it was a funny scene, being the only foreigners among 50 Peruians in orange work clothes. We had an american breakfast for 10 soles, 2.50 euros. Doesn´t seem like a lot, but it is in Peru. ´Desayuno americano y precios americano´, I said to the waitress. She was laughing at my ´insult´. People in Peru take
everything with humour, you´d be lost here as a traveller without it. After breakfast I went out to have a smoke. The sun was just about to rise, and I could finally see the beautiful mountain panorama around us.
We took a cab to the hydroelectrical power plant, from where on we would have to hike two hours to get to Aguas Calientes, which is the base for the trips to Machu Picchu. Rain set in when we arrived at the plant, so we took shelter for about an hour, time i could well use for a nap. We set off - it was an amazing hike along the railroad tracks, incredibly lush and steep cliffs rising on all sides. In the middle of the trek, a stray dog joined us, we thought we´d lose him at all kind of obstacles along the hike, but he always managed to overcome them without any troubles. He was the most chilled and wisest looking dog we´d ever seen, and therefore we name him ´Yoda´. After he guided us all the way to Agua Calientes, he joined another pair of travellers to show them their route. The 2 hours hike had taken
us 3 and a half hours, the night in the busses was obviously exhausting.
Of course this was not the main route to Machu Picchu, most people take two trains from Cusco. But since the train route is the only convenient one to the ruins, the operators established a monopoly and shaped the prices accordingly. Our route was way cheaper, but the best about it was the beautiful hike and the many encounters we had with locals and Peruian life that normally isn´t showcased.
We rewarded ourselves with Pizza and got us a room. It was 2 o´clock in the afternoon. Aric laid down for a ´nap´, he got up again at 3:30 in the morning. I kept myself awake until 4 p.m., but then fell into a deep sleep too. We all got up at the same time and started our 800 m ascend at 4:15 in the morning - sunrise more than one hour away. Leaving the town, we passed by the bus station - dozens of tourist where already waiting there for the first bus that starts to operate at 5:30.
It was a steep hike and we never really found time to relax, since
we wanted to make it to the summit before the buses arrived there, so we had the chance to see Machu Picchu without tourist crowds. We arrived just in time - and guess who waited up there for us to be our guide once more - Yoda. I have no clue how he made it up there, he was tiny and old - the force?
Machu Picchu itself was amazing. It was foggy and cloudy in the morning, the place looked even more mysterious and ancient in the sweeping fog. It appeared to be out of time, a feeling that would be gone in a couple of hours, when hundreds of tourist where rushing through the ruins. Many things about Machu Picchu where appealing: the tremendous setting in the mountains, the secret of it´s purpose (scholars still guess about it´s purpose: simply the capital of a province, a retreat for chosen women, a sacred place), the good state of the ruins, the fact that it was ´forgotten´for centuries.
We enjoyed the relative calm for an hour and started another ascend after that, atop Waynu Picchu, the big mountain you see in the back of the pictures. The views from
up there are quite amazing, but judge yourself. We descended at 11 o´clock, the sun just came out and it became pretty hot. We were glad we had opted for an early hike up.
The ruins were occupied by an army of tourists meanwhile, quite different to the feeling in the morning. Concerns are that the constantly growing flow of tourist will decay the ruins, but due to the fact that Peru can use every tourist dollar, they are unheard yet.
Tired, we went back to Aguas Calientes in the afternoon. We had dinner right away, Aric and I had two meals since we were so hungry. We met a beautiful french couple in the restaurant and had a spanish-french-german-english conversation. Then I took a short nap for an hour, had another gorgeous dinner in the same restaurant and went to a presentation of a German movie about the ´discovery´ of Machu Picchu by the American historian Hiram Bingham in 1911, a Yale graduate. Locals had rediscovered the site a couple of decades earlier, two farmers were even growing potatoes on some of the terraces. Despite the fact that Bingham didn´t realize the magnitude of his discovery at
first, it made him world famous and the character of Indiana Jones originates in him.
After a good night´s rest, we set off for the strenous route back the next morning. At the hydroelectric power plant we took a cab again, the french guys had joined us for that. The cab was one of those old, huge American cars that you know from the movies, one in which three peolpe can conviently sit in the front. Ours was a Ford Monterey ´67, the driver was the mechanic as well. I insisted to sit in the front, I always had wanted to ride in one of those giants - who would have guessed that it is gonna be in the middle of nowhere in Peru. The ride was great - the driver honked in every turn and the sound made you feel like being in a large cruise ship in the middle of an ocean.
At Santa Teresa we couldn´t take the bus we came in since it was fully booked (sunday), so we had to go in a Mini Van. It was quite a ride, Peruvians like playing loud hispanic pop music, and the driver had it cranked
up fully for the whole ride. None of the other passengers had a problem with the volume and the selection of the music, and since we didn´t want to interfere with local customs, we went along with it. After 4 hours of loud hispanic pop, exotic remixes like a spanish version of Falco´s Amadeus and western pop classics like ´Beds are Burning´,´You take my self control´and ´Girls just want to have fun´- detested 80s- we finally went nuts and found ourselves shouting along a seemingly 20 minutes version of ´We are the World´. I even got my lighter out and waved it along. It was hilarious.
A good trip!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.202s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 7; qc: 43; dbt: 0.1564s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
chris
non-member comment
pfau!
hallo franzi! schön wiedereinmal von dir zu lesen. scheint ein toller trip gewesen zu sein. gratuliere zu deinem englisch, da kann ich nicht mehr mithalten, so ein längerer auslandsaufenthalt ist halt von unschlagbarem wert, was das anbelangt. wie war´s in kanada - jetzt einmal abgesehen von deiner meditationswoche. und wie schauen deine weiteren pläne aus, wann und wo werd ich dich wiedersehen? solltest du unterwegs bleiben wollen, könnt ich unter umständen für die weihnachten einen flug buchen. gib mir bescheid. möge die macht mit dir sein, hehehe.