We woke up again at a stupidly early hour and were out the
door to our transfer van by 4am. The
ride to the train station at Ollantaytambo was probably an hour and a half or
so and I slept through almost all of it.
The train was basically boarding when we got there and it
departed at 6:10am I think. The train ride was slow but nice. I stayed awake
for the whole ride. We were in a panoramic car which has windows at the top too
so you could see more. They served a drink and a snack. I had a coca tea
(though I suppose I shouldn’t have) and a muffin. The ride took also probably about an hour and
forty-five minutes. We arrived in Aguas
Calientes at a little bit before 8am. We
met our guide Patrick at the entrance to the train station.
Patrick loaded us onto a bus and we took the half hour ride
to Machu Picchu directly after getting off the train. The weather was nice at this point but with a
bit of clouds around. Patrick was a good guide. He had a funny and dramatic way
of saying everything. And everything was “the famous Machu Picchu” and “the
famous Inkas” and “the famous whatever”.
It was really quite amusing. He explained about the general layout. We
saw the Sun Temple, the Sun Dial, the Condor, the arena and pretty much
everything. Where this was my second time through Machu Picchu I wrote all this
up before and I don’t really have the time to go over it all again. Please reference my earlier post from my trip
in 2009 for the details. Towards the end
of the tour it started to rain a little bit and it picked up a bit more as we
rode the bus back down to Aguas Calientes.
At Aguas Calientes most of us went to Indio Feliz which is a
French and Peruvian fusion restaurant owned by a Frenchman. I had a set menu which started with Creole
soup, pepper chicken with a pisco sauce and an apple pie with custard and ice
cream (I think the ice cream was actually grapefruit sorbet).
After lunch we got to the train and it was another hour and
forty-five minute ride to Ollantaytambo. There we exchanged to our van for
another hour and forty-five minute ride. We had to stop for a few minutes
because George didn’t feel well.
By the time we got back to Cusco it was pouring rain out.
Everyone got situated and then we bade them a farewell as we walked up to Plaza
San Blas and had a coffee and soup before heading back to the room and getting
some sleep for the night. I am not sure what time it stopped raining but the
whole time we were out it as a solid cold rain and even with the umbrella we
got soaked. The coffee and the soup were both very good.
The pictures from today are located here.
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