Feb 24
Hey everyone, sorry it’s taken me so long to get another update up here. Things have been busy at the school!
Anyway, I’ve been at El Colegio de la Inmaculada for about a week now. I am getting integrated into the classes, getting to know the students, working with the teachers, creating an English informational booklet about the animals at the school and meeting all sorts of great people. Everything is going well, and it is definitely interesting living with Spanish-speaking Jesuit priests! They are very good people though; light hearted, sincere, eager to share and each with interesting past experiences.
So, with that said, I am going to continue from where I left off on the Cusco adventures. (I took notes, but just didn’t write everything out. This blog is kind of serving as my personal journal as well!)
After the adventure with the horses, archeological sites and museums we got up early the next morning to catch a cab to a near-by bus station. We thought it’d be better to catch a cab than to walk through the dark streets with our luggage. We arrived at the bus station just in time (and I’ll let you know how we found that out later) to catch a combi (small bus) to Ollantaytambo, the departure point for our train to Aguas Calientes (the closest town to Machu Picchu).
After paying our S15 (about $6) we enjoyed a rather uneventful hour and a half ride to Ollantaytambo, though it was filled with some impressive views. Upon arriving we had some extra time, so we stopped for some breakfast at a café called “Café Perla”. We then boarded the train, Peru Rail, to Aguas Calientes without a problem, but soon realized that our seats were on opposite sides of the train for some reason. It was ok though; because I sat next to an interesting fellow from New York named Jason (Doug got the stoic Russians, lol). After talking for a while I learned that Jason was only in Peru for a week and a half or so, and that he had come from Cusco early this morning as well. As we talked he asked me how I’d gotten to Ollantaytambo, and we then realized that we had departed from the same bus station. Jason, however; said that he saw our Combi pulling away, and that the next one didn’t have anyone waiting for it except him. Since he was the only passenger he had to pay $50 to get to Ollantaytambo! … Poor guy.
Anyway, during the train ride we saw all sorts of great views and had a close up view of the raging Urubamba River. It was fun to talk to Jason about his travels, and Doug looked like he was getting a lot of great pictures, so I didn’t bother, and just enjoyed the ride (we had already said we were going to swap pics after the trip).
After arriving in Aguas Calientes we walked across the town (a walk of about 2 minutes) and checked in at Gringo Bill’s, our surprisingly nice hostel. We then picked up our Huayna Picchu (Machu Picchu PLUS a hike up to a taller peak, Huayna Picchu!) tickets and our bus tickets to ride up to the site in the morning.
After getting set, ticket-wise, for our trek up to Machu Picchu we decided to do a little exploring. There was a lesser-known trail in our travel books called Putucusi only a few hundred meters out of town, so we walked through a crowd of bustling workers (and didn’t get yelled at!) and followed the train tracks out of town. On our right the mountain side rose steeply up hill in a lush blanket of green, and on our left the Urubamba raged on with no apparent attempt to stifle itself.
After walking for a bit we came upon a narrow steep path leading up to the right and assumed this to be the Putucusi. Indeed it was, but after a half hour of hiking the trail we hit a point that was pretty tough to get past. It rose up probably 100 vertical feet and consisted of a sheer rock face and a dangling metal cable with broken ladders littering the rock face… We thought about trying to climb, but if you would have fallen from the cable it would have been pretty near certain death. So, we decided against it, and went back to the hostel for a nap instead J
When we got up a little while later we decided to go to the hot springs or “Aguas Calientes” that the town was named for. We weren’t expecting a whole lot as our travel book described them in less than enthusiastic terms as “scungy”, but we were still disappointed, haha. They were more like luke warm springs, and even in the slow season they were overcrowded and… well pretty scungy. The people at the counter were nothing short of stone faced and the older ragged gentlemen running beers to people represented the overall ambience pretty well.
So much for the wondrous hot springs!
That’s ok though, that’s not what we were there for, and afterward we went to a great restaurant called the Tree House. They blended Peruvian ingredients into really cool modern Peruvian dishes. I had a great trout dish while Doug gave the llama a go!
We then finished out the day by stopping by a bar called the Captains Bar. The bartender’s name was Alfredo, and he was a blast. We probably talked for a half hour or so, and he even got us some complementary fries and pisco (Peruvian liqueur from fermented grapes) shots as we talked about the five different varieties of pisco. After that we called it a day, and looked forward to the sites Machu Picchu was sure to have in store.
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