Friday, 29 April, 2011. 15:51. PeruRail Explorer Suite from Machu Picchu to Ollantaytambo

At 04:15 my watch alarm went off. We like to double the wake-up alarms to be sure. We packed our bags and went down for breakfast just after 04:30, still with no wake-up phone call. The breakfast was still being prepared, so we sat for a few minutes until the guy motioned us to eat. There were sweetish breads, ham, cheese, butter, jam, and the guy came to take egg orders in Spanish. There was no cereal. We ordered fried eggs each and received one each, sunny-side down. M. had saved half her bread roll to have it on, but I’d eaten mine already.

Some others drifted down to eat, and we quickly learned that nobody had got their wake-up calls. We told Ale, and she raced upstairs to check on everyone, then had some heated Spanish with the reception lady, who appeared in her pyjamas. However, we still managed to assemble everyone by just a couple of minutes after 05:00. Jian was the last to join us, as he was in his room watching the royal wedding (Prince William and Kate Middleton) live on TV from England!

We left to walk down the hill to the bus stop for the buses to Machu Picchu. We joined a queue in the pre-dawn darkness, which already contained several hundred people ahead of us. Buses were lined up along the street and more kept arriving and turning around to join the back of the queue of buses. The street was barely wide enough for them to do a three-point turn without falling into the adjacent river, and the footpath barely existed, so the buses blinked their lights to get queuing people out of the way as they turned.

As we waited, the street light nearest us blew. All the others up and down the street were still on. This let us see the stars, with Scorpius setting over the mountain to the west that hid Machu Picchu far above. The thin crescent moon rose slowly over another mountain to the east, horns pointing upwards as it preceded the sun. Vendors with baskets of water, snacks, and even promising hot coffee scouted up and down the queue looking for customers. We saw some of the royal wedding on TVs in cafes by the street.

The first bus left at 05:30 and people filed on to them one at a time, each bus leaving as it filled up. More buses kept coming and even though we were 400 or 500 people back in the queue, there was no danger of the buses running out before we got on one. Eventually we’d worked our way down and climbed aboard a bus, Ale showing the ticket inspector tickets for all of us.
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It’s been a long time since I last typed up a day of this travel diary. But I haven’t forgotten it!

Thursday, 28 April, 2011. 09:25

We are resting in our room after breakfast. We got up at 07:00, but M. was tired and after a shower climbed back into bed, while I wrote up some of yesterday’s diary. A short time later, the power went out, so I laid down and closed my eyes too. We intended to go to breakfast at 08:00, to have time to meet the group at 08:30 for an optional walking tour of Ollantaytambo. But when the lights came back on and we looked at the time it was 08:17 already. We dressed and went to the breakfast room, where some of the group were already waiting with Ale, while some others were finishing breakfast. I told Ale we wouldn’t be coming for the walk as we were running a bit late.

Breakfast was some sticky cereal like the one at Cusco, strawberry yoghurt, flat bread rolls, and eggs cooked for us. That done, we came back to our room again for a bit more rest before checking out the Inca remains here in town.

15:22. Hotel Plaza Andina, Aguas Calientes

We have arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes after our PeruRail train trip from Ollantaytambo down the Urabamba River.

Back in Ollantaytambo, we went out to get M. a cup of coffee. We went back to a place we’d tried after dinner last night, Hearts Cafe, although then they had turned off the coffee machine for the night. M. got a cappuccino, and for the first time on the trip it had chocolate on top instead of cinnamon. On the way we ran into Ale in the square and she asked if we’d climbed the mountain to the Inca remains looming over the town on the mountainside, or visited the Inca religious centre at the other end of town. We hadn’t done either, but were planning to visit them later. However Ale suggested climbing the mountain, saying Andrew and Zaina and Zeeshan were doing it, and the views from the buildings above were spectacular.

So first we went back to the hotel to get my camera bag, and ditch my jacket because I hadn’t realised how hot it was. We walked to the square and down a narrow laneway between buildings to the starting point of the climb. The way was steep and rocky, and M. didn’t like the look of it, so she waited at the bottom while I climbed up. I had to pause to catch my breath several times. Not far up I noticed Andean pipe music drifting down the mountain. It turned out to be a guy playing in a shady spot next to the path. He asked, in Spanish, if I had water, then switched to good English when I said I didn’t speak Spanish. I gave him a sip from my water bottle. He said he liked to play there because of the acoustics of the music bouncing off the mountainside. He gave me an encouraging farewell as I continued up past him.
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Wednesday, 27 April, 2011. 21:55. Tika Wasi Valley Hotel, Ollantaytambo.

It’s been another full day. it started at 08:00 as we rose for breakfast. M. had slept well, but I don’t think I got any real sleep at all again. I laid in bed all night thinking “fall asleep” and being unable to do so. I had some sort of half-awake dreams about Ale leading us to all sorts of weird places. It was probably my brain trying to sort out the events of the last few days and doing it despite me not yet being asleep.

Breakfast was as yesterday, except they replaced the watermelon with kiwifruit. After this, at 09:30, we assembled with the group for the day’s activities.

These began with a bus ride uphill from Cusco and over a pass into the next valley, where we stopped at the town of Pisaq. The scenery along the way was spectacular, and Ale stopped the bus a couple of times to let us stretch our legs and take photos of the Andean scenery. In Pisaq we stopped at a bakery, apparently run out the back of some guy’s home. He made traditional empanadas in a small wood-fired oven. There were four choices: traditional (spicy cheese, tomato, onion, and herbs), ham and cheese, cheese and basil, and sweet (banana, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg). I had a traditional and M. had a cheese and basil, which turned out to also have tomato in it. They were 2 soles each, and smallish and flat, not like empanadas I’ve seen elsewhere that are more stuffed and rounded. The flour was quinoa. They were okay, but nothing special.
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