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Getting to Aguas Caliente.
We were ready at 4:30 today to catch a taxi to the Santiago bus station where we had been informed that buses to Santa Maria started at 5. We arrived in plenty of time to buy our tickets only to be informed that the tourist information people were wrong (shock!!!!) and the first bus didn't in fact leave until 7:15!!! We were both unsurprisingly very pissed off at this and sat Grumbling for the next half hour or so until a lady showed up selling coffee. We warmed ourselves with a cup each for $0.30 and proceeded to buy our ticket and board the bus which as usual left a good 20 mins late due to all the faffing about by people who turned up late!! The bus was very bouncy and being sat right at the back we naturally had the only seats which didn't recline so we both ended up squashed in when the people in front decided to put their seats as far back as possible!! Despite this we both managed to nod off for a good 2 hours or so and only woke up as we were descending into the very lush and quite spectacular scenery of the Inca's sacred valley. We stopped off in a place called H... where we picked up some passengers and rather more people selling all sorts of food, from hamburgers to jelly, we bought a couple of corn on the cobs which came with two bits of white squeeky cheese each. The grains on the corn here are huge and very pale but we both remarked that they actually had far less flavour than those we were used to from home. With our lunch sorted we now set off again, while Mae chatted in Spanish to the man sat next to her about all sorts of things I instead admired the changing scenery as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains!! The road snaked up through a mountain pass over several bridges and along many cliff hugging roads, some of which the driver seemed determined to fall off!! We spent the next hour or so climbing up to over 4000m through a few water falls which ran right across the road and also a couple of places where landslides had covered the road in rocks and dirt. Once at the top we found ourselves in the midst of a dense fog and it was no longer possible to see anything out the window on the way back down the other side, only hope the driver could see better than us as he failed to slow his pace even slightly in the changing conditions. We finally arrived at Santa Maria about 6 hours after we left still in one piece and set about finding a collectivo to Santa Teresa. We eventually got into a car with two Peruvian women and set off. This road was even more dangerous than the last one, being unpaved and only a single carriageway with a steep 3000ft drop of to one side. Our security wasn't helped by the car we were driving which despite being a Toyota had distinctly American steering which only responded a couple of seconds after the wheel was turned. If not for this however the drive would have been stunning through a mountainous and somewhat desert landscape where we could look down (or not!!) to the river twisting through the valley floor below us. The drive to Santa Teresa took about 35 mins including stopping to pick up another passenger. (who had to sit in the boot) We arrived perfectly in time to swap our collectivo for a minibus which was headed to the hydro electric station. First however we had to drive around the town 3 or 4 times to pick up enough passengers!! The drive took a good 45mins to an hour and we were very glad we hadn't believed the guide book which informed us that it is only about 6km (maybe as the crow flies) and tried to walk it. After signing in a the guard post which is only required for tourists apparently we walked to the train ticket booth to check the prices. Finding that they wanted a ridiculous $18 for the 15 or so minute journey we decided that we would be better off walking. At this point a kind lady who had shared the taxi with us from Santa Maria told us that if we walked up two tracks we could avoid a loop in the railway and walk a straighter route to Aguas Caliente. Thanking her we climbed up the two tracks and walked about 500 yard before it started tipping it down and we had to stop and put our ponchos on. The guide book said that it should be a pleasant walk along the railway and we were once again forced to ask ourselves whether anyone form lonely planet has ever tried going this route as despite the breathtaking scenery we both found it hard going as there was no actual path and we frequently found ourselves having to walk along the sleepers of the railway in order to keep our footing. At one point we were even required to cross the river via a railway bridge which appears to had seen no maintenance since it was built around the 1940s... As we walked along we marvelled at the river which was so loud we frequently mistook it for the train and the mountains which rose up as almost shear cliffs all around us. We also wondered how (and why) the Incas had managed to build some of the terraces we could see halfway up these mountains in what appeared to us to be utterly inaccessible locations. It took 2 hours to reach Aguas Caliente where we were immediately accosted by a couple of people trying to get us to stay at their hostels. Following one of these we found ourselves in a pretty little private room with our own bathroom which even had HOT WATER!!!!! a distinct rarity since we left Valparaiso. We immediately took full advantage of this and both had a shower to warm ourselves up after getting soaked on our walk. We then went out again briefly to buy a bus ticket fort the next morning for $9 each (ridiculous price!!) and find ourselves a meal of soup and a main course (mae had spagetti bolognaise and I had some kind of stir fry) plus coffee all for $3 each. (meaning you could feed 3 people for the price of a bus ticket!!) After this we walked back to the hostel and turned in around 8:30 in anticipation of a long day tomorrow!!
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