The guides offered us
five options for Wednesday morning due to the rainy weather. We opted to take the walk to the Gate House
and Inka Bridge. We had to be ready to
leave by 5.30am so that meant up at 4.30am in order to have some breakfast
before a hike!
Kerren and David had a
room at the front of the hotel and said that they had seen young people leaving
from as early as 3am to walk up the mountain!
Crazy? It again was raining, not
heavily, but it was wet. About 30 of us
left the hotel on foot for the bus station.
I was amazed at how many people were already lining up to get on the buses. There was a large queue to get in at
Machupicchu, again, we were all standing in the rain. Fortunately, we had seen good quality rain
ponchos in a store in Cuzco for $US5 and they worked a treat!
View of the entrance and bus station
We had 10 people in our
little group and we were so lucky to have Oscar taking this activity. For such a young man, he was so knowledgeable
and our hike was safe and interesting!
There were many stairs and he kept stopping for us to rest, checking
that we were managing in the wet conditions.
The Gate House at the top gave a great view and the rain had slowed to
drops, we were able to take photos with some openings in the clouds.
The hike to Inka Bridge
was along the mountainside. We don’t
know how the Inkas built it, as there is a sheer drop straight down. Perhaps it was fortunate we had rain, we
couldn’t see the bottom or very far down because it was all filled in with
cloud! The hike concluded where the
trail goes across a sheer granite cliff face.
The Inkas had used ropes to tie three huge timber posts together in a
part where there was nothing below – a defense mechanism in case of invasion,
where they would simply set fire to the timber if being followed by an enemy,
eg the Spanish.
The Gate House - in cloud!
On the walk to the Inka Bridge
Sheer cliff face
Inka Bridge
End of the trail - Inka Bridge in background
We walked back from
there and the sky cleared some more. It
had stopped raining and the sky had brightened.
We ran into some Americans we had met on the ship as we passed the Gate
House. Walking down requires care and is
just as much an effort as walking up!
No queue to get back on
the bus at 8.50am! Our rain ponchos had
dried out thankfully. The bus driver
dropped us at the entrance to our hotel, so in 30 minutes we were back in our
room, having warm showers. David walked
to the shop where we had bought Cusquena 600mL beer for 8 Sol yesterday to
return the bottle (as requested by the young man behind the counter) and was
surprised to receive 2 Sol back!
Recycling at its best! He said he
would have given it to the teenager if he had been there, but it looked like
Dad or an Uncle who was running the store, so he didn’t.
Departure time was
10.30 at the train station. Bought a
couple of small items at the market, you have to get used to bartering and not
taking their first price…. I find this difficult! The train this time was a locomotive with
engines under the carriage and left on time at 10.55am. The staff served coffee and a small salad
roll and having had such an early start, we all settled back to relax.
The driver announced
that we would be stopping for about 10 minutes in a village and waiting for
another train to pass. All we could see
was bush and the river and we were wondering where the ‘village’ was? Outside, there was a very old woman dressed
in traditional clothing, bent over with arthritis, who appeared with a huge
bunch of flowers. She was waving at us
and she came over to the train – we were all waving at her and some people
threw money out of the windows for her!
Suddenly, over the loud speakers some music began and a dressed up
‘creature’ began dancing up and down the aisle!
I’ve never seen this on a train before!
They told us he was from the village, a cross between traditional and
Christian beliefs and bestowing good luck on us in our travels! Next, they announced that courtesy of
Perurail and SoL clothing, we were now going to see a Fashion Show of their
best designs in baby alpaca clothing!
The two staff who’d ushered us onto the train and served our snacks,
were now wandering up and down the aisles to music, in a variety of ponchos,
jackets, jumpers and scarves! It was so
much fun!
Our friendly Señora
Our friendly visitor
One of the many outfits in the fashion parade
At about 12.30 we
arrived back at Ollantaytambo station and picked up by our drivers. Kerren had made friends with some local
fellow who called himself ‘Kevin Costner’ and he was selling jewellery….. so
she introduced him to me… and then he followed us wanting us to buy some of his
stuff! We managed to get away from him –
but he was there again when we arrived in Cuzco at our hotel and again the next
morning when we left!
Lunch was at a flower
nursery at Urubamba – beautiful quinoa soup and 2-for-1 pisco sours! Kerren bought some baby alpaca wool to knit
into scarves. We arrived in Cuzco at
about 3.30pm and our hotel was in the centre of the city near the church. Oscar gave us a tour of Qorikancha it had
been an Inka temple, said to have had pure gold on the top of the boundary
fence and gold intertwined in the straw of the thatched roofs, that when the
Spanish first saw it, they described it as ‘glistening’ in the sunlight! So when they invaded, it was promptly
plundered. Oscar said that it had stood
there for 300 years and within 3 months it was in ruins, replaced by a Spanish
Catholic cathedral (below).
We had a quick walk
into the main street of Cuzco. Female
police officers on point duty at traffic lights blowing their whistles! Changed money at the cambio - $1US = 2.99
Sol. Dinner in the hotel was fabulous!
