Wednesday, 21 January - Machupicchu to Cuzco!

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!