Day 5 - Ollantaytambo - Aguas Calientes... and Machu Picchu!

I wake up not able to remember where I put the Machu Picchu passes.  Panic!  After a quiet scramble in the dawn light so as not to awaken my daughter, I find them safely ensconced in my purse.  Whew!
     I was woken up at 5 a.m. by the elephants in the room upstairs.  (Bare wood floors.)  They also woke us last night when they rolled in.  Now I truly know what “waiting for the other shoe to drop” means.

      After a simple breakfast, we roll our suitcases down the only well-paved street in town to the train station - mercifully downhill.  To reach the platform you have to run the gauntlet of stands on one side and hawkers on the other.  One guy even shouts, “I have your train tickets”, which is a blatant lie.  Along the tracks walk women with 20 hats piled on their heads, both arms hung with woven bags, each more colorful than the last.
     They scatter as the train arrives.  We climb the steep steps and we’re off.  The last leg of our Machu Picchu approach includes an esnaquey (a snack) and a Vistadome view of our gradual slide from Andean mountains to almost-jungle on either side, not to mention the white water Urubamba River running alongside the tracks.

Bridge over the Urubamba for the start of the Inca Trail

Line for Machu Picchu!

     I’d been told not to expect much of Aguas Calientes but I find I like it... although I wouldn’t like to live there year-round.  The train station delivers you into the huge crafts market.  We have a hard time finding the way out of the labyrinth, with no exit visible in any direction, just stall after stall after stall.  Once we finally get outside, we find the town has a bit of a “far west” feel.  No cars.  Only the buses to Machu Picchu along the river.

Wash-out

   The hotel is nearby:  modern, organized and tastefully decorated with wood everywhere.  As their check-in time is only 1 pm, which is not yet, we leave them our bags and go directly to the buses.  I stand in the long line while Andy buys the bus tickets at the office.  Finally we’re on our bouncy way up the mountain.  This road is not for the faint of heart and crews are repairing places where the edge has washed away during the rainy season.  The buses are smallish - just 29 passengers - but still they can only pass each other at certain places.

     Even before we enter the gate, we’re assailed by guides.  Of the three, we choose Gloria - or more probably Gloria chooses us.  It’s a blessed match, at least for me.  She’s old enough - probably in her late 40's - to understand my limitations.  She’s from Cuzco, where she started as a guide, then did four years on the Inca Trail (!) and now has been at Machu Picchu for ten years.  She knows the place inside out and seems to have a bit of pecking rights over the younger guides.  She chats with the older ones and helps the whistle-bearing guards keep the tourists off the grass.  In one place, a young woman from Québec steps over the rope to photograph the baby llama.  He jumps up and skitters off to mama llama.  Only five days old, he’s all legs, like a foal.  Born on August 1st, the day of Pachamama - the Earth Mother - he’s black, the Inca color of luck so he’s seen as an omen of good things and everyone is very protective of him.  Gloria yells at the Canadian before the guard can even whip out his whistle.

House of the Guardians, at entrance from Inca Trail

     It’s all so beautiful, so amazing and impressive.  Having built all this way up here.  And supplying it by trade with Cuzco via the Inca Trail.  Finding spring water elsewhere and creating an aqueduct system to bring it all the way here.  Keeping the jungle vegetation at bay and the snakes away.  Too much upkeep for the women and children when the men finally went off to war.  And so it ended.  Or so Gloria explains, and it seems logical.
     Unfortunately for me, the altitude is getting to me a bit.  I feel faint.  Maybe it’s just my being old and out of shape.  Or the heat.  Or the fact that we have no water because we read that water bottles weren’t allowed... which isn’t true any more.  Or all of the above.  Tired and out of breath, I mention muna to Gloria.  She disappears, leaving us taking photos.  When she reappears just a few minutes later, she hands me a bouquet of muna, which helps with the shortness of breath.  As the llamas have grazed all that grows naturally, she’s gone into the botanical garden and, let’s say, pruned a bit.  She keeps pulling more and more out of her pocket as we continue the second half of the tour.  A very sweet, veteran guide.  I’m sure I worried her and probably also ruined her day.
      After almost an hour standing in the bus line, we bump our perilous way back to Aguas Calientes, which lives up to its name with a hot shower, unlike in Ollantaytambo.  Then a delicious dinner included in the price of the room (but not the Peruvian red wine).  And then it’s bed, which my legs are thankful for.