Day 6 - Aguas Calientes - Cuzco

Plaza de Armas, Aguas Calientes

During the night my brain made some unconscious executive decisions which were seconded by my cramped legs when I hobbled into the bathroom in the morning.

main street - Ave. Pachacutec

     The plan was to go back up to Machu Picchu and walk the “easy” trail up to the Sun Gate - Intipunku - the entrance to Machu Picchu from the Inca Trail.  But that takes 1½ hour up and 1 hour down.  After Ollantaytambo two days ago and then Machu Picchu yesterday I have thighs of steel - hard and rigid - and they wouldn’t make it without great discomfort to me.  Although Gloria might just have shortened our visit, given my feeling faint twice, we saw most of the site yesterday.  And the second day was always just in case of rain the first day.  Besides my daughter needs to phone her clinic at noon and I doubt if the Intipunku comes equipped with phones to call home.

The line

       Nonetheless, I head out to buy the bus tickets while my daughter sleeps.  (They only sell bus tickets on a day by day basis, not for several days in a row - don't ask me why!).  But when I come around the corner the line  is three times longer than yesterday, all the way up the river, around the corner and clean out of sight!  That becomes the determining factor, an obvious omen that I’ve made the right decision.   So instead I go over the bridge and down to the train station to see if I can change our tickets back to Cuzco on an earlier train.  When I get to the ticket window, I’m told there are just two seats left on the earliest train - another omen. That won’t get us into Cuzco early enough to visit anything, unfortunately, but we’ll get there two hours earlier, which is a good thing as we’re flying back to Lima the following day.

Aguas Calientes

       So we spend a restful morning in Aguas Calientes, whose steep streets are about all the up-and-down my thigh muscles can handle.  In one of the shops, my daughter buys me my birthday present: two pairs of silver earrings made locally, one with the Pachamama symbol and the other the Andean cross design.  Then we enjoy a lunch of sliced avocado and potato salad in the sun before rolling our bags across the bridge and through the crafts market to the station.

The "esnaque"

       Our train is the same Vistadome-type as the one from Ollantaytambo - complete with esnaque - during our reverse voyage back from near-jungle to Andean mountains and then through wild canyons.

Back along the Urubamba

       Once the sun has gone down behind the high mountains on either side and the food service is over, one of the staff puts on a multicolored costume with red scorpions embroidered on the front and dons what looks like a dog/jackal mask and starts to dance up and down the aisle to recorded Andean music, waving a red cane and teasing the ladies.
       That's followed by a fashion show by the other two employees - a man and woman obviously at least partially hired for their attractiveness.  All the articles they model can be bought.  Then dog/jackal man comes back and decides my daughter just must join in to model a poncho.  She does more than model it; she decides "in for a penny, in for a pound" and starts to dance around with him.  If he weren't wearing that mask, I'm pretty sure his face would have shown surprise and then delight.

Chachabamba

We arrive on time at the end of the line in Poroy, well outside of Cuzco.  Inside the station, taxi drivers hold up names of passengers.  None for us.  All of a sudden, a man with a burnished face asks us “Taxi?”  Tired, my daughter and I look at each other.  It’s a welcome offer. Eugenio turns out to be an ex-sociology professor who now makes more money driving cab.  Interesting conversation and adroit driving for the entire half-hour ride.
       At the hotel he offers to drive us to the airport tomorrow morning.  And then he gives me a strong birthday hug.
       We go inside and are given a choice between two rooms in two different buildings.  We choose the older, the one that shares quarters with both a Starbucks café downstairs and a youth hostel upstairs.  No wonder they want their own space, but the older rooms were cozier by far... so cozy that you could hear guests walking by and see their shadows through the curtains.
       Not that I notice for long.  Soon I'm fast asleep.

Plaza des Armas, Cuzco - Hotel Loreto on right, where it says Starbudks

P.S.  The rainbow flag - seen in the top photo - is the flag of the Andean peoples:  the Inca, Quechua and Aymara.  It's flown in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia.  At the height of the 16th century, the Inca empire stretched from southern Colombia to southern Chile.  Historians say the Incas viewed the rainbow as a gift from the sun god.
       It is the official flag of Cuzco, once the Incan capital, but there is growing unhappiness at it's being mistaken for the gay pride flag, even though the Incan flag has an additional blue stripe.