Friday, 25 May 2018, back in Cusco.

Unsealed roads with no guard rails don't deter these high speed gravel gauchos!

Passenger trains pass several times as I walk to Aguas Caliente. 

Swiss Alps, Canada, New Zealand or Peru? The Andes are as good as any!

No time to post a blog yesterday – up at 4:30am in Agua Caliente to catch the earliest bus to Machupicchu around 5:30am and didn’t get back to my hostel in Cusco until 10pm, exhausted and ready for sleep. But today I’m having a rest day to catch up with emails and write my blog. This morning I took my own quick oats to a café I often use here and asked them to make me up some porridge (they didn’t know what porridge is – breakfast here is often a plate of French fries with various other additions of vegetables or meats). I’ve yet to find a café that serves cereal for breakfast in Peru, but no doubt hotels and some hostels offer it as an alternative to a cooked breakfast (this one has no dining room).

So, my tour to the fabulous Machupicchu. The minibus picked me up Wednesday morning at my hostel at 7:15am and went around town picking up the others on the tour before setting off for the town of Aguas Caliente, which is the town that services Machupicchu. It’s a lot further from Cusco than I thought – a six hour minibus trip, then I opted for the walk from the drop off point at Hydro Electrica to Aguas Caliente along the railway line – the travel agent told me it was a two hour walk and as it was along the railway line it was easy. Okay, but he didn’t mention that to get to the railway line you have to climb a very steep bank for some distance and that the walk is actually closer to three hours. Never mind, the scenery was worth it – wonderful jungle either side of the line which runs alongside a large, fast flowing mountain river not unlike some that flow on the West Coast of New Zealand. From a distance the mountains look to be covered in similar bush, as well, but as you get closer you notice that the plants are tropical with bright flowers and banana palms growing wild everywhere, some with bunches of unripened bananas hanging on them. There are several vendors along the line selling fruit, meals, drinks and ice-creams (bananas, four for NZD .50 cents) and the prices are reasonable for the other stuff on offer as well. The mountains either side of the track are simply stunning – towering above the river and so steep. Several trains passed us as we walked the track and we had to cross several rivers walking on the sleepers – one misplaced foot and a broken leg would be inevitable! Despite the warnings to use the deviations around the tunnels most of the walkers (including myself) opted to risk being half way through when the next train arrived in order to avoid the extra exertion required to circumnavigate them. I only saw one group ahead of me who were in a tunnel when a train approached from behind them and they had to make a hurried exit to get out. I just followed that train through knowing I’d be safe for at least half an hour. The trek is about 12 kilometres and about 1 kilometre from my destination as it was getting dark I missed my footing on the loose ballast alongside the track and fell heavily on my face and “manbag” and just managed to stop myself from sliding down a steep bank into the river, fifty feet below. Nothing was broken (just a bruised left cheek bone) so I picked myself up and continued on into town and to my Hostel, Eco Mapi (which I can’t recommend since the travel agent assured me it had hot showers – yes, hot for 30 seconds then cold after that). I checked with other guests staying there and they found the same problem. There’s four things you can’t assume you’ll find in a Peruvian bathroom – toilet paper, towels, a hot shower and hot and cold water over the basin. You often have to ask for toilet paper and a towel at reception when you check in. And you always need to carry a roll of toilet paper with you when you’re out in case you need to use a public “Baño” – you might pay half a sol and get access plus eight sections of paper, but that’s not always quite enough! Most, but not all, have toilet seats – otherwise it’s just the bowl. Primitive. Anyway, lunch on the way up to Hydro Electrica was included in the tour package, as was dinner that night and breakfast (if you could call it that – a banana, tetra pack juice, four cookies and a small bottle of water) the next morning. The hostel printed the bus ticket up to Machupicchu and the entrance ticket (which I notice was 160 Soles – almost half of the tour cost). I thought I’d walk back down to Aguas Caliente from Machupicchu but it’s a lot further than I thought so I bought a bus ticket back down as soon as I got to the top. At 8,000 visitors per day (4,000 in the morning and 4,000 in the afternoon), this has to be Peru’s golden goose – that’s well over half a million NZD per day, just to enter. The bus up and down is another USD12.00 each way. No wonder when you enter Aguas Caliente you feel like you’ve suddenly been transported to another world – swish Western-style hotels, bars, clubs, shops, restaurants, etc. It’s hard to believe you’re actually in Peru. Prices are high there, of course. NZD3.50 for a pint of beer in Chile – NZD8.00 there. Considering the number of tourists who travel to Aguas Caliente by road, though, you’d think they’d invest in sealing them – they’re shocking. Unsealed, rough, potholes everywhere, narrow, fords to cross all the way – extremely hard on the vehicles that have to use them and even harder on the tourists who have to travel on them. The seat in the Renault minibus I traveled up there in was so worn out I had to use my puffer jacket as a cushion (and even it was hardly adequate). The Mercedes minibus on the way back had a more comfortable seat but cramped leg room and no space for backpacks and since it was full for part of the journey mine sat in the aisle with my heavy “manbag” on my lap. The driver on the way up must have done the trip thousands of times as he sped the whole way on the gravel roads, blowing the horn at every blind bend on the narrow stretches to warn oncoming traffic he was approaching, but not slowing down one bit. Several times he had to reverse up to let other traffic pass and had no qualms about overtaking slower moving minibuses despite the narrow, unsealed road carved into cliffs above thousand-foot drops into ravines. The bus was so close to the edge at times that I couldn’t see the edge of the road from my window seat – only the thousand feet of empty space to the river below. There are no guard rails. Half way there we had to stop to let a young woman get out and vomit – she retched again and again and must have felt wretched and moved into the front seat of the bus but didn’t look like she was enjoying the ride. The driver on the way back drove a lot slower and I had less confidence in his ability after we stopped en route for a coffee and he reversed into the toilet block when we were leaving. He was also stopped by the police in a small village en route and some lengthy discussions were held while they took his licence – I presume another minibus driver had complained to police about his driving and they were sorting it out. In the end it looked like a “fine” was paid in cash and his licence was returned and we continued on our way. At that stage we had about 3 or 4 empty seats and he stopped at a pharmacy and made a phone call and in the next village we picked up enough extra locals to fill the empty seats – again, I surmise that the phone call was to solicit extra cash passengers to cover the cost of the “fine”. This is Peru!! As we travelled alongside the river I could see white-water rafters paddling their way downstream and through the numerous grade four (?) rapids. There’s an incentive not to fall out of the rafts – every village pours it’s effluent into the river. Mountain biking is a popular sport here and some tour operators specialise in promoting it. They load either your own or a rental bike onto the top of their minibus and take you to the top of a very high mountain where the road might or might not be sealed and you can enjoy a very long, exhilarating, high speed ride back to the bottom. Some of the roads would be around 20 or 30 kilometres of downhill switchbacks. The sealed roads would be a motorcyclist’s dream – winding, long uphill and downhill sections, hairpin bends, apparently no police, certainly no speed cameras.

After arriving back in Cusco at 9:30pm I expected the bus to drop me back at my hostel, but no, everybody out at the Plaza de Armas and taxis waiting to take you to your accommodation at your cost. I can’t remember the name of the hostel I’m staying at but know it’s close to a significant statue on a main road and the driver recognises my description but still wants the name of the hostel – in the end I give up in frustration and walk. I know which direction it is from where I am and soon find the railway line that runs past it and follow that. I stopped at a pizza parlour for a pizza, but like hamburgers here, they really need lessons – the base has no tomato paste on it, which is a prerequisite in my books. Just a thin pastry base, cheese and ham pieces. It tasted good though and came with half a dozen toasted garlic bread sticks and two spicy dips – not too bad for NZD7.00. Pizzas here are very expensive considering the ingredients are so cheap here – I think because they are a staple of the North American tourists who frequent the city in the high season in big numbers. Enough for today – after all that trekking yesterday and the day before I just might need a full body massage to loosen up my aching back and legs. At NZD40.00 for an hour it sounds like a good idea! Ciao.

You can see the numerous switchbacks in this photo taken en route to Hydro Electrica.