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A New 7th Wonder of the World?
Sacred Valley
We started out tour to Machu Picchu by going through some of the ruins in the Sacred Valley that we could have visited on foot if we were not too lazy to do the Inca Trail. We were to be picked up from our hotel between 8:30 and 8:45 for the bus at 9:00am. By 5 to 9 no-one had arrived so angrily we walked down to the office in a hurry. We were then walked to the bus by the tour agency people who tried to ask why we didn’t stay outside our hotel – kulaks……. We finally reached the small tour bus and got handed our train tickets and another envelope for our Machu Picchu guide called ´Geraldine Castro´.
We would have had a nice pleasant drive up to Pisac observing the view but unfortunately the bilingual Kulak guide, Leo, spoke non-stop for 1 and a half hours without pausing for breath. He also used the words ‘no’ and ‘please’ in completely the wrong places and far far too frequently. Leo´s dress sense was also questionable; he wore blue corduroy trousers with a maroon polo shirt tucked in and carried a water bottle in one pocket which pushed the trousers out sideways in a very clown like fashion. We were certainly not going to trust this man.
The first stop was Pisac market, where we were informed by Leo that it was all too expensive so we shouldn’t buy anything. Charlie tried out a few more musical instruments but non could compete with the 15p flute! We walked around the colourful stalls and found a few snack places which had a lovely pet area filled with guinea pigs. Unfortunately these poor animals were not pets. Charlie asked a lady near the pretty enclosure if the guinea pigs were for eating. She grinned happily and replied Yes in a very matter-of-fact way. This seemed to disturb Charlie more than Lisa, who decided he couldn’t eat a pet. But to Lisa an animal was an animal and at least these were treated better than chickens. We found some snacks, less pet like, that tasted like pizza and we returned to the bus.
We then headed to Pisac ruins, where Charlie found that his camera no longer worked. He had been electrocuted by it in a very suspicious and dangerous looking socket in the hotel in Cusco. Not sure what was wrong with it Charlie remained depressed as he could not get any pictures of Machu Picchu. The honour now fell to Lumicron and Prosio (neither of which could be relied upon to work or take good pictures). At the ruins we wandered away from Leo as he was talking in Spanish again but apparently missed out most of the tour. Leo asked us if we were enjoying the tour, we shifted uncomfortably and asked if we could climb a hill instead, thus avoiding direct questioning. We wandered about looking at the amazing scenery and then headed back to the bus via an unused route to get a bit of excitement. Calum refused to join us in the steep walk and went via the normal Granja path. Thankfully the danger path avoided all the sellers at the top… hurrah.
We stopped for lunch in Urubamba and started talking to an Englishman, who is now referred to as Ben Sam Avocado for very intricate reasons. We socialised all the time through lunch and Lisa had to rush at the end because she talked too much. There was another error of vegetarianism, as some stuffed chillies were claimed to be veggie by the counter kulak but as Lisa picked one up she claimed they had meat in. Lisa then questioned every other food item in the buffet 5 times to make sure the kulaks knew what they were talking about.
Our final stop was at Ollantaytambo, a place as hard to say as it is to spell. Again there were more ruins and some carved faces in the hillside opposite. Apparently they faced Machu Picchu and were carved by the Incans. We tried to ignore Leo but he kept watching us so we had to feign interest. Non of the guides ever explained the Incan history and daily life and if questions were asked unrelated answers were returned. We enjoyed walking about this ruin and the view over the town was amazing. We were glad to have another 2 and a half hours here as it was a clean town that reminded Lisa of the Lake District. We tried to find cheap food but we couldn’t so we opted for the crispiest café we could find and got led through the family’s living room into a walled of, covered garden with tables. It was similar to being in the beer tent at a festival but being able to see Incan Ruins at the same time.
After lots of food and more crap shopping we entered a very expensive café and Lisa opted for an alcoholic coffee, whilst the boys went for less alcoholic options. We stayed warming up in the café until we had to get the train. We walked 20 minutes from the town to the train station and had 100s of kulaks running towards us in the dark with no particular reason. The herd mentality took over us and we felt maybe we should be going in that direction but we continued down the road. We eventually got to the end of the road and waited in a semi-queue until we were allowed to board the train. The queue packed together in a hoard as the door opened about an inch. It then shut again but we stayed in sardine formation for another 15 mins. Finally the push started and we all squeezed through the narrow door onto the platform and found our seats on the train. We were all split up but Lisa was happy to be sat next to a very attractive gentleman indeed.
After the alcoholic coffee, Lisa had become animated in speech and spoke to Laurent for the entire 2 hour journey to Aguas Calientes. It turned out that he was French, Lisa slightly miffed by this but gave him a chance as he had sworn allegiance to the Queen. This was due to becoming a Canadian citizen. They discussed biology, and he had just read a 1960´s book called the Naked Ape that Lisa had also just read. They also discussed politics, classics and other mind probing topics.
Once the train arrived they took their leave and Lisa met back up with the boys, who had slept for the whole journey. We found a girl holding a sign for the hotel we had a reservation at and we were escorted to a triple room. This was better than expected as there was fear of a dorm. Hotel Las Bromelias smelt of damp and there was only cold water. Lisa’s bed had damp and meant that she couldn’t sleep due to the smell and actually feeling wet (but that might have been to do with the boy). That night there was the loudest storm that Calum and Lisa had ever heard and probably Charlie too but he slept through like a baby. The thunder rocked the hotel and it rained constantly, which gave us all much less than the possible 5 hours sleep (Charlie excluded).
Machu Picchu
We awoke to the alarm at 4am following 5 hours sleep. Charlie’s shoelaces were wet as the roof had leaked on his shoes. We all peeked out of the front door of the hotel at 4.30am to a dark town square and pouring rain. The guide the night before told us that the walk to Machu Picchu would take 1.40 hours, so we left plenty of time for disasters. We followed the road out of town and crossed a bridge that hugged a cliff over a raging river of black that we could only hear. It was petrifying. Eventually we stumbled on the train station and realized we had made a wrong turn. We found some kulaks who pointed us in the right direction, so our trek continued.
Eventually we reached the base of the hill that Machu Picchu sits atop. We started climbing the steep stone steps that cut up the side of the mountain, every so often intercepting the winding road for buses that crosses it. We had barely made it half way up before all 3 of us were dying of exhaustion. Although it was raining, we were too hot in our rain gear so we had taken it all off and were soaking, from both sweat and rain. We kept climbing, and for a while we seemed to be the only ones on the trail. Eventually, some people started overtaking us. They seemed suspiciously out of breath, so we all felt ultra unfit. It was only when we spoke to some people climbing up the hill that they told us they had been on the bus coming from Aguas Calientes, which had met a landslide halfway up the hill. This explains their non-exhausted states, since they had only been climbing from halfway up the hill.
We eventually reached the top of the hill at 7.15 am (we had been climbing for 2.45 hours!) We had planned to meet our tour guide at 6.45am, but since all the buses had been delayed due to the landslide we assumed we were still in time. By 8.45am we had watched several tour groups meet with their guides, but ours was still not in sight! Eventually, very wet and cold, we went to the office to enquire about our guide. After much persuasion, the lady eventually radioed through to him, and it turns out that he had already entered the park. How we missed him, we will never know! We now all felt very annoyed and didn’t care if we had a tour or not, so we just asked for our tickets and intended to enter the site ourselves. However, we were told that the guide had taken our tickets into the park with him (instead of leaving them for us at the gate, like other guides had done!) We were told we would have to buy new tickets and then get a refund on the way out or just wait for the guide to finish the tour and come out. Neither of us had enough money, so we had to wait. Somehow I the confusion, our tour operator (who sold us the tickets) had a conversation with Charlie on the phone, courtesy of a doctor from next door, since all of the public phones had been damaged in the storm.
Eventually, 4 and a half hours later we were able to start our tour. Lisa spotted the guide, since he had “shifty looking eyes” and we managed to collect our tickets form him. He said that we could join the next tour, so we began to relax as now the prospect of having to buy new tickets ($40 each) was no longer a reality. Our tour guide was named Raquel, who had lurid blue and pink eye shadow and was lovely. She seemed genuinely concerned that everyone was enjoying the tour, and for once, these hardened cynics actually did appreciate the information we were given (for once). On our tour were several granajs and granjads, who kept interrupting to tell the lovely Raquel that America had all the artifacts, and she should petition to claim them back. Raquel didn’t care for any of this, and simply giggled. Later she told us that people believed the treasures of Machu Picchu were cursed, and an old Indian man who lived by the river touched some of the gold and then died. This is why she didn’t care for the artifacts to be returned! Several of the granjads slipped and skidded on the dangerous paths. At one point, one of the old grandjads asked Raquel for help going down the stairs. We watched as she frog marched him down, much faster than he would have walked on a stable surface. Nonetheless, both client and guide reached the bottom safely.
Once the tour was over, we were free to wander the site ourselves. We headed up to an area that you could take the famous picture from (or make a picture, as Raquel would say). Once we had failed to do this, we went in search of the Incan bridge. This dangerous cliff top walk led us out to a small pile of bricks. This, turns out, was the Incan bridge. On the way back, Charlie and Lisa collected plastic rain ponchos that people had naughtily discarded. Tut tut!
Lisa and Charlie walked back down to the town (only took us 45 minutes, compared to over 2 hours on the way up!) The chick was very tired so he took the bus down. On the walk back, we crossed over the scary bridge again. The river was churning and extremely fast flowing, and looked like the river in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, i.e. brown.
Paddington Bear, Where are you?
After the descent from Machu Picchu we collected Calum from the hotel and went in search of some Spectacled Bears. These are the endangered native Peruvian bears that were made famous in the form of Paddington Bear, from deepest darkest Peru. There is a sanctuary at a hotel called Inkaterra, where Stephen Fry went to help and wrote a book about his experiences. We found the hotel with directions from iPeru but on arrival they questioned if we were guests, of course we couldn’t afford that! So we told them we weren’t but that was the wrong answer and we were denied admission. We are still unsure why the Sanctuary only allows hotel guests if visitors are willing to pay. One would think that it would be encouraged. Lisa had been looking forward to seeing these bears ever since reading that book and seeing an Attenborough programme. A strongly worded letter will be written to Inkaterra.
The guys get into hot water
The disappointment was soon banished by going to the Hot Springs a litteral translation of the name of the town. We had all forgone showers, as it was bloody freezing, so the baths were uber nice. It was a well set up place with changing rooms, lockers, showers and built pools. The water was a little sulphurous and made all our swim wear smell. Calum hired some swim shorts for the event! We relaxed our limbs in the hot water but had to move from the first bath as it was just too hot. We found a pool to ourselves and relaxed until a large group of hideous northern English people descend in a mass on our pool. We had to leave as the accent was too grating and brought back bad memories to Lisa. The water made all our skin crinkle like old granjas so we eventually braved the cold air and returned to the town.
Pizza Competition
Hunger had taken over and we felt we deserved large pizzas due to the strenuous walk that morning. The main road up to the springs was lined with restaurants all touting for business as it was the low season. We compared prices at all and took advantage of the 3 for 1 drinks in happy hour. The restaurant we chose had the cheapest pizzas and happy hour. Carlos declined the drinks as there was nothing he liked but Calum and Lisa plumped for three Piña Coladas. These arrived in glasses no bigger than shot glasses and were almost pure rum. This was not enjoyed by anyone. Luckily the pizzas were fantastic and fairly cheap.
Final thoughts: A great little town, unfairly criticized by the tour books. We had a lovely time hanging out here, and we all loved Machu Picchu. Even the mammoth trek to get to it seems to make the experience even more the worthwhile. (Even we couldn’t give Machu Picchu a bad review.)
Mark out of 10 = 8.5
Next time… Cusco 2
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