Wednesday 6am. The phone delivered the wake-up call exactly as requested and we had commenced dressing for breakfast when we received a second call advising that our driver was waiting at Reception to rush us to the Ollantaytambo station for the re-scheduled Vistadome journey to the ‘lost city’ of Machu Picchu. As Michelle hurried off to settle our account I stuffed all our possessions into the backpack and ran after her.
The 35 minute drive to ‘Olly’ was completed in less than 20 as our driver smashed every speed and safety law known to man, and we skidded into the station car park to hear the final boarding call for the train still 200m away. The last time I made a 200m dash was probably 50 years ago but I stumbled on and eventually collapsed into my seat gulping for oxygen like a marooned guppy. It took a large chunk of the 90 minute trip to recover. Once I was able to breathe, and curiosity took over, the first thing I noted was the piles of suitcases cramming every spare corner of the carriage. Clearly our fellow passengers weren’t privy to the level of counsel we received.
The 40km journey from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes follows the Urubamba river, passing through several small villages into an ever-narrowing gorge. Along the journey we caught occasional glimpses of a narrow track winding along the steep slope high up to our left through the panoramic windows of the Vistadome carriage. The famous Inca Trail was an adventure travel option I was glad to have passed over; it would be a once-in-a-lifetime event, but breathing was difficult enough without having to trek five days and rough it in the great outdoors.
The train terminates in a town called Aguas Calientes (Hot Waters) at the base of the mountain bearing the citadel named Machu Picchu. We disembarked and fought our way through a forest of market stalls flogging the usual tourist tat until we discovered our transfer guide at about 10am. He eventually rounded up all his charges and escorted us to the bus for the climb up the mountain. To be fair, the guide was unprepared for our early arrival and we later discovered this was a common event, Peru Rail being notorious for sudden timetable changes on a whim.
At a comparatively moderate 2400 masl, the air was clean, pure and thankfully plentiful.
It’s a six kilometre walk from the station at AC to the ruins of Machu Picchu, and I’ve heard tales of hardy adventurers making that hike in an hour. Not this little black duck! The bus operators provide a very reliable ‘ferry’ system to the peak and purpose-built buses leave regularly for the 20 minute climb through a series of switch-backs giving a spectacular view of the river valley below. And these buses are constantly full from the first departure at 5am til the final call at 5.30pm. Miss the last bus and you get to enjoy the downhill walk.
Once at the top, the buses stop just outside the only hotel on the peak and disgorge their passengers who make the final uphill scramble to the ruins. We pre-booked a private tour guide and lunch combo for Machu Picchu as part of the overall package arranged by Ted at Contours Travel and this turned out to be a godsend. As we climbed the final few steps, finally cresting the mount and taking in the iconic first glimpse of the ruins, we also noted they were teeming with tourists. Thousands of them.
I won’t bother attempting to describe this site, our language is patently inadequate to convey the overwhelming sense of awe, mysticism and spirituality that washes over all who make the journey. Just put it on your bucket list and take the first opportunity to visit that arises.
We tracked down our personal guide who led us to all the most major sites over three hours and explained their history, significance and role in the day-to-day life of the Inca inhabitants in the 15th century. We probably learned and saw more than most visitors in that period thanks to the insider-knowledge and experience of our guide and we noted that most visitors were juggling backpacks, guide books, cameras and maps as they roamed the stairs and plazas of the ruins.
Our lunch was in the dining room at the Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge. It turned out to be an unremarkable self-service buffet (I try to avoid buffets when travelling) but hunger and tiredness took over and we siezed the opportunity to sit and recover. An hour later, refreshed and re-charged we ventured out onto the ruins to meet the experience without the comfort and guidance of a guide.
At 4pm we decided to descend the mountain, and therefore avoid the last-minute rush-to-the-bus, check in to our hotel, and explore Aquas Calientes. The Mapi Inn hotel was centrally located on the midpoint of a sloping pedestrian street that is AC’s backbone. The facilities were simple, but adequate for an overnight sojourn, and we abandoned our backpack and ventured on to the street.
Numerous guide books and social review sites refer to Aguas Calientes negatively as a “backwater”, “tourist trap” and a “rip off”. All are possibly true, but after two nights in the crushing boredom of Yucay we were grateful for the distractions of shops, bars and restaurants and thoroughly enjoyed poking around the town. We did, however, scrupulously avoid the hot spring baths (after which the town is named) fearing inadequate sanitation might put a dampener on the rest of our Peru trip.
We settled into a small bar up hill from our hotel and enjoyed a couple of cerveza de barrils while watching the antics of a small monkey as it played in the shell of a building under construction. We found the locals to be friendly and polite, clearly accustomed to a “United Nations” of visitors roaming the streets. Dinner was a so-so pizza and bottle of Ocucaje Fond de Cave Malbec Cabernet Sauvignon. As the first slosh hit my glass Berlin’s anthemic 1987 torch song ‘Take My Breath Away’ drifted from the speaker above our table. Just about summed the entire day up – from dash to train to the vista some four hundred metres above us.
Another early night followed; we planned to hit the bus early next morning to work in a few hours on the citadel before the arrival of the daily tourist trains.