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Jo & I could probably go on for hours about how much we enjoyed the Andean Explorer train. I´ll try not to get carried away here...
We decided to go for the 1st Class ticket. It´s considerably more expensive (about 6 times more!) than the Backpacker class, but after the journey I think it was great value for money... you can walk between carriages, we had a bar carriage, an observation carriage, good toilets, big comfy armchair seats, tables with white cotton tablecloths, waiter & waitress service for morning coffee, free pisco sour, 3 course lunch, afternoon tea with sarnie and cake, and 3 different entertainment events! The backpacker class doesn´t have any of that, so we were very happy with the decision!
Althought the ride itself was a little bumpy it was fascinating. When going through towns and villages the train went right through the middle in amongst the people... there is no barrier between the tracks and the town so we had to go very slow with many blasts on the horn to warn people and animals to move out of the way!
Highlights were of course the fantastic views of the Andean mountains and life, the entertainment on board and the waving to the local kids as we passed each village or settlement.
Thinking about the entertainment... we had local dances, rituals and a fashion show! The fashion show was probably the most interesting... the 2 female models wore rather tight black catsuits... as you can imagine, many of the male passengers found the fashion show more interesting due to this fact! I, of course, didn´t dare look as I was sat next to my wife... I just listened to her description of what was going on!!
Whilst the journey itself was excellent and the service superb, the arrival in Cusco left a little to be desired...
After slowly pulling through some of the poorest areas of the city and having hundreds of locals give signs or waves of varying friendliness we had to sit for 10 mins on the train so that "passengers bags could be unloaded to make it easier for us to collect".... yeah right! All this meant was that we got off the train to be kept standing for 10mins and then everyone was let loose to scrum down and find your bag on the platform!! Not impressed there!
Anyway, we were met by a rep from our hostal and got a cab with him into town to begin our Cusco adventure...
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