April 15
This morning the wake-up knock comes at 4am, as promised - it's very dark indeed, but it's still just about possible to tell that it's pretty cloudy (not a star in sight overhead). People have had two days to get used to the morning routine, so by 4.40 we're pretty much set to go - and half a dozen people head off to the toilet block for their morning ablutions. **** ! We wait around for a couple of minutes, then Cesar takes us down to the checkpoint to be first in the queue for when it opens, while Jaime waits for the crappers (can I say that...). There's still no sign of them at 5am, so most of us head off through the checkpoint, and Cesar heads back to the campsite to find them. The path here again traverses the side of the valley, and there's a drop off to our right, but even as the sky lightens, the cloud is too thick to see how far it is (or much of anything, for that matter). It's almost fog rather than cloud, with a lot of moisture in it, and we're getting pretty wet walking through it, but no-one wants to stop - Intipunku, the Sun Gate, is just above us. After twenty minutes or so the stragglers catch us up, and another twenty minutes finds us at the stone columns of Intipunku. It's almost full light now, and sunup can't be far off, but the cloud hasn't lifted at all, so it's hard to see the significance of this place - it's only from Machu Picchu that it's possible to look back up, and see how the sun would come up right between the pillars. We wait here for around fifteen minutes, as more and more hikers follow us up, before Cesar announces that we're going to go down towards Machu Picchu, to wait for the cloud to clear. People are kinda grumpy (including me), as watching the sun rise over MP from the Sun Gate is supposedly spectacular, but there's nothing we can do about the clouds, and we walk on. The path drops gradually down for fifteen minutes, until we reach more terraces, and another checkpoint - Cesar explains that MP is right below us, and we wait ... and wait ... and then the clouds part, for a fleeting second, and we finally see the ruins.
We wait here, on the terraces above the ruins, for an hour or so, as the clouds very slowly lift, revealing Machu Picchu, and Huayna Picchu, the hill you see behind MP in every photo. But they don't lift uniformly, or quickly, or irreversibly - the clouds swirl and gather and reform, and we sit for an hour, drinking in the views of the ruins, and the hills, and the distant Andes, and as they finally clear, the Urubamba river below us. Where we stand is the spot where
the photo of Machu Picchu is taken, and it's strange to see this sight, familiar from countless magazines and books, finally revealed below us. By nine o'clock, the sun is properly up, the clouds have all gone, and it's warming up - we head down to the hotel at the foot of the ruins to leave our packs (and have a second breakfast - ruinously expensive egg and bacon rolls
), and join the seemingly never-ending stream of daytrippers who have stayed in Aguas Calientes the previous night and taken the first bus up. We spend the next three hours looking around the ruins, but in many ways they're a disappointment - as so often, the journey has been more than the destination. There's no arguing with the scale, or the achievement which Machu Picchu represents (we decide that vertiginous is today's word of the day, too), but there's too many tourists with camcorders and bad dress sense - I wish I was back at Winay Wayna. We *refuse* to pay $5 each for a bus down the hillside (hey, it's only about 2 miles, although 1 of those is down
) so head off down the path. It's yet more freaking steps, and these are clearly not Incan - it's very uneven, but at least most of it is shaded by trees, since it's now getting really hot. About halfway down, we get passed by the two fittest members of our group, who've run up
and down Huayna Picchu, and kept right on going - they're clearly aiming to run all the way down the hill and onto Aguas Calientes. We wave them on.... It's actually only forty minutes down to the bridge over the river, which isn't too bad, and another fifteen minutes alongside the river brings us to town. AC is a one horse town, but it's the iron horse - just a long strip of hostels, restaurants and t-shirt shops spread out along the single rail track. We head to the pizza place which is our meeting spot (run by Cesar's mate - he takes the opportunity to flake out upstairs), and tuck into a large Hawaiian and a beer. At three thirty, everyone grabs their kit and heads off towards the 'station', where we are refused entry - Cesar still has all our tickets ! The fit members are sent back down to the pizza place to rouse him. With about ten minutes to go before the scheduled departure time, Cesar comes running up the street (actually, that should probably be 'tracks', given that the 'street' is actually a small space each side of the railway, and you certainly couldn't get a car down it
) with a handful of tickets, which he passes out. We head into the station, but the doors onto the platform are closed, so there's a last few minutes of sunshine to be bathed in before we all board. The train is completely full, but clean and fairly spacious, and they have trolley service selling snacks and drinks. It's an hour and a half back to Olly, with great views as we follow the Urubamba eastwards. It's just dark as we get off the train at Olly station, and walk a mile or so up the road back to the main square, where the same United Mice from three days before is waiting for us (we also wondered why the bus couldn't come down the road to the station, but up near the main square there's a big rock (car-size) in the middle of the road - go figure !). We pile into the bus, and head back to Cuzco. The moon is full tonight, and I think that most of us spend the journey back admiring the landscape, lit in electric-blue by the moon - there's just a couple of minutes excitement when 'Down Under' by Men at Work comes on the tape, and we all sing along
. Arriving back in Cuzco, we get dropped off first (shouts of 'see you in the pub') and make our way (hobbling, in my case - my knee's completely locked after sitting immobile on the bus) back to the hotel. We pick up our key, and the bag we had left behind, and head to the shower - wow, that feels good
.
Feeling squeaky clean and surprisingly awake, we stroll back down to the Plaza de Armas, pausing only to change some cash, and hit Paddy's at ten to ten. It's not exactly a typical Peruvian bar, and it doesn't look like there's anyone in here from South America (even the bar staff !) - when we find out later that they're selling canned Guinness at 13 soles (about $ 3.80) we realise why it's not big with the locals ! I'm too ready for a beer to hold off for ten minutes, so we order drinks and a snack, and settle into a corner which looks like it should be big enough for the whole group. People arrive in dribs and drabs, but by 10.25, everyone's here, and the left-over cash from the tips is used to buy a couple of tables full of Cuba and Peru Libres (two for one in happy hour
). The group has a strong Northern European bias (with the exception of a Kiwi and an Aussie), so there's none of that namby-pamby sipping of drinks - we're all on a mission to get pissed, and by about 11.30, one of the Icelanders becomes the first casualty, passing out in the chair in the corner. A bottle of sambucca appears (from where, I have no idea
) and everyone takes it in turns with flaming mouthfuls of the stuff. Cesar and Jaime have joined us, and they are manfully keeping up, but clearly they're not used to this - I think the Spaniards left behind their 'civilized' attitudes to drinking along with the language. We stagger off at about 1.30, ignoring all the safety advice about taking cabs home at night, but we're still in more danger of having our shoes over-zealously cleaned in the Plaza de Armas than of being strangle-mugged.
April 16
A quiet day ! For the third (and last) time on this trip we don't have an alarm call, and take our time waking up. Our only task for the day is picking up our train tickets down to Puno for tomorrow, so we head off to the station, stopping at the nearby laundry to drop off a few t-shirts to keep us going until the end of the trip. We had pre-booked tickets in first class (the only class you can reserve more than five days in advance) for $82 each, but when we got to the station, we noticed that, in a remarkable contrast to most airline seats, for 'last-minute' sales it is possible to buy 'backpacker' class seats for only $14. After three seconds of thought, we decide that the three course lunch in first class isn't worth $136 for the two of us, so buy the cheap seats. Walking back up to the Plaza de Armas, we stop to buy some water and a snack - after four days of roughing it, we decide to treat ourselves with a Snickers - it's only as we walk away and do our sums that we realise that it cost $1.50
, turns out it's imported from the US. A leisurely afternoon precedes supper at Paddy's (the observant will have noticed that this seems to run counter to our earlier stated desire to stay off the gringo trail, but hey, we're still feeling a bit hungover...) and a stop at the laundry to pick up our stuff. Unfortunately, the laundry is closed - oops !
next up - Titicaca and Bolivia...
[edited to say - it edits out 'danm', but allows 'crappers' :****: - useless software...]
[This message has been edited by Stewie Mac (edited 05-09-2003).]