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All great adventures start with a few challenges. The planned journey to Machu Picchu was to include a bus ride followed by a train to Aguas Calientes.
Although the four of us were ready and on time at the travel agency, they were not. The travel agent did not arrive but his Father did, holding a very young infant. After several nervous phone calls, a women arrived to open the doors to the travel agency. The Father quickly ran in and retrieved our train and entrance tickets and then the race was on.
Since we missed the original bus, we quickly hopped in the closest two cabs to a little side street filled with more taxi cabs. At this time we were given quick intructions about meeting our guide later that day and notification that there would be people with signs to greet us everywhere we went. After some debate between our travel agents Father and the taxi driver, we were finally off to catch the train.
The drive to Ollantaytambo to catch the train goes through the beautiful Peruvian country side, marked with small towns, rolling agricultural fields and switchback mountain roads. Our driver knew that time was critical so he took our little Toyota with Ferrari decals and put the pedal down.
A few kilometers out of town we stopped for gas. The driver came back into the car after several minutes and tried to explain that it would be a few minutes before we would be back on the road. With our combined knowledge of Spanish we realized that the gas attendants had put deisel in a gasoline car. Before we knew it Burrill had hopped out of the front seat to help the driver and an old couple push the car over to a ramp. About 15 minutes later the deisel had been drained and we were back on the road.
The speedy ride that followed was a gorgeous ride though mountainous countryside. We made the train in Ollantaytambo with about 8 minutes to spare.
We took the Inca Rail line which is a tourist train with cushioned seats and sky lights. The train ride followed a river valley with snow capped mountains and waterfalls.
Once we checked in to our hostal in town, we toured around and find a spot for a cold drink and some food. We spent the afternoon just hanging out and playing games of yahtzee and bananagrams in a balcony restaurant.
As the day was winding down we walked to the center of town, which was an outdoor soccer pitch set with a mountain backdrop. It was great to see people of all ages gathering at the end of the day to either watch or participate in some friendly recreation.
In the evening we met up with our guide and recieved the details for our trip to Machu Picchu in the morning. Although we were all super tired, it was difficult to sleep with all of the people making noise in the hostal hallway. We discovered that the Peruvian soccer team was playing in a World Cup qualifying game that night against Paraguay. Lucky for us, the Peru squad came through with two goals in the second half!!!
Then it was lights out to prepare for our 4:45am wake up call.
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