Tuesday, November 4 - Machu Picchu (Liz)

This was yet another early morning for us, as we needed to be at the train station at 6:10 AM. We bough some cheese sandwiches outside of the station for breakfast. Our train car on the way there was filled with a group of French tourists. I know this sounds funny, but I don't like being in places with lots of tourists which doesn't quite work since I myself am a tourist and contribute to the number. The train included beverage and snack service, which was a nice surprise due to our small breakfast.

The train ride was again full of beautiful scenery. The tracks follow the Río Urubamba which is a fast-flowing river with beautifully weathered rocks. We were sitting right behind the conductor's area and the French tourists kept coming up and shoving their cameras in a little window to take pictures of him. They had Peruvian-style panflute music playing the whole time, but it was all American / British pop music that they were playing such as Can You Feel the Love Tonight, Hey Jude, and Simon & Garfunkel songs. It made us laugh.

The train ends in Aguas Calientes, the staging town for Machu Picchu. When we got off the train, we headed down the 20 minutes to the entry point for hiking up to Machu Picchu, while the other 98% paid way too much money to take a Mercedes Benz bus up to the top. Well, when we got down to the bottom, come to find out, we needed to go back to town to actually get physical tickets rather than just our internet print-outs. (Of course, our print-outs didn't mention anything about this.) So it was 20 minutes back up to Aguas Calientes, and 20 minutes back down. We were REALLY warmed up by the time we started the hike up to Machu Picchu.

The hike is very steep but short - it's 1.8 kilometers and it's an estimated climb of one hour. I counted the stairs to keep myself going, as I was still a little sick. Mark was very patient with me, and we made it to the top, huffing and sweaty, in about an hour and ten minutes. It was very rewarding to have made the climb.

The photos with this sign actually happened before we started our upward ascent.

Mid-hike. This is a good representation of the slope of our hike.

We entered the grounds and Mark was in awe. We followed the typical paths through the ruins and took lots of photos. We didn't hire a guide but rather went in with what minimal information our guidebook had, and whatever tidbits we overheard from the English and Spanish speaking guides. There isn't really much else to say - we took plenty of photos and did lots of walking. Afterwards, we ate our leftover pizza from the night before to get our strength up for the hike back down.

It rained a bit as we were going down, which was actually very refreshing. I sweated more than I thought I would for going down, but we made it in 39 minutes and then walked up to Aguas Calientes to eat something more substantial.

We found a restaurant that wasn't impressive by any means but cheaper than the other tourist traps, and had a decent lunch. We then found an ATM and finally got my bank card to work (yay!), then went to the station to await our train.

Dog at the restaurant where we ate lunch

The train ride back to Ollantaytambo was pretty uneventful - this time there was a large group of Chinese tourists in our car - and then we loaded into a colectivo to head back to Cuzco. There were a few German girls in our van so Mark was happy to have a chance to practice a little of his German. My bowels were about to explode by the time we got to Cuzco, and luckily I recognized the plaza where we stopped so I was able to run into a nearby restaurant. We ended up eating mediocre pollo a la brassa there, then headed to our hotel for some much needed R&R after a long day.

Observations:

• Some tourists (especially older ones) take completely unnecessary photos. For example, the arrivals board at the train station when you yourself are leaving rather than arriving. Also, the Americanized cafe in the train waiting area or the train conductor in his own special room with whom you've had absolutely no contact.