Well the pace of the tour has picked up and we’ve had some very very long days. Left Puno at 6.30am, joined other tourists on a larger tour bus – very much bigger and better than our usual mini van AND with a toilet on board that DID have a toilet seat, which is an extremely rare luxury anywhere in Peru. I must say at this point how grateful I am to my mother for introducing me at an early age to The Hover Pee, which was taught to avoid the possibility of catching some heinous life-threatening disease by ensuring that no part of your anatomy actually touches any part of the toilet. It’s come in jolly handy and I am still alive to tell the tale.
We had 4 stops along the way, including Inca ruins at Raqchi and a village called Andahuaylillas and finally made it to Cusco briefly at 5.30pm. Saw only the outskirts of Cusco, which looked really poverty-stricken – we passed a dirty-looking irrigation channel next to the main road, in which some women were doing some hand washing – a little further down there was a man peeing into the same channel and 5 metres further a dog having a poo into it! Luckily we are going to stay in central Cusco after Machu Picchu, so hope to see a better side of the city…
In Cusco, we transferred to a minivan for another couple of hours to drive to our very remote hotel in Urubamba, Sacred Valley. The van conked out completely about 20 minutes before we got to the hotel and we had to hang around in the dark waiting for a replacement (yawn). We finally staggered up to our new room, after a quick bite to eat at around 9.30pm – and a cheeky little bottle of Chilean Casillero del Diablo – and after 4 power cuts in 20 minutes, fell into bed exhausted, after showering by torchlight, which is not uncommon here in South America where power cuts are plentiful.
We spent our full day in the Sacred Valley visiting all the main sites such as the little town of Ollantaytambo, the Inca ruins there, and Pisac, which also has Inca ruins and a very colourful street market. Ollantaytambo is the main starting point for the 4 day Inca Trail up to Machu Picchu. Our local guide was called Rolfi and we really enjoyed his company and great sense of humour. Of all the local guides we’ve had, he is the one we’ve all bonded with the best.
On the way to the market town of Pisac we decided to stop at a roadside restaurant where they had guinea pigs roasting on long sticks and share 2 guinea pigs between us. It was hard to distance ourselves from the cute little fluffy guinea pigs we’d seen running around that morning in Ollantaytambo and actually eat the meat, as there is no disguising the fact that you are eating the whole guinea pig and nothing but the guinea pig, as they don’t remove anything except the fur before they roast them. The ears are particularly crispy! But when in Rome…you have to try these things. Quite tasty really, like a cross between chicken and lamb. Considering there are so many of the little buggers being farmed for eating, they are actually quite expensive to buy in a restaurant. Anyway been there, done that, no plans to eat it again.
The next day we set off early for our train and bus ride, with Rolfi as our guide again, up to Machu Picchu, with a stop in the village of Aguas Calientes before and after. It was absolutely breathtaking to wind our way up to Machu Picchu in the bus and get a sense of the sheer size of the mountains all around it, then to turn a corner and finally see Machu Picchu in the flesh. We had so looked forward to it and were definitely not disappointed. Spent half a day there – there were a lot of people of course, but it didn’t actually feel that crowded as it is a huge place with lots of nooks and crannies to explore. We loved every second of it – what a magical place!
After a couple of hours in Aguas Calientes, during which we managed to find a nice restaurant for a Machu Picchu Pina Colada cocktail and early dinner with two other frosty tops, Peter and Rae, we then boarded the 6pm train back to Ollantaytambo and from there another couple of hours in a bus to our new hotel in Cusco, arriving after 10pm. Another VERY long but hugely interesting and long-awaited day!
2 Frosty Tops Do South America 