Ollaytaytambo Aguas Calientes 1

Monday, October 6th, 2008

Day 99 on The Big Trip. “Get to Aguas Calientes”

AGUAS CALIENTES, the town nearest Machu Picchu, is our goal today. In order to do this, we shower and start walking down the steps and through the plazas to reach the train station where we are told that the train we want to catch is completely full, as are all of our options because of the strike.

THE STRIKE was unofficial until the night before and is a bus and train strike, or so it is rumoured. It is still unsure whether or not it will be just in Cusco or Peru-wide. Either way, as a result of the strike tomorrow, everyone has booked their trains to get to Aguas Calientes and we are left with very few options to get there by Tuesday. We are told that although there is no room on the trains, direct or not, we can go to Urubamba and beyond to Ollaytaytambo via two buses or one colectivo. The two buses would be cheaper at S/4 and S/2, but the S/10-S/15 colectivo would be direct and quicker. That’s our bet.

BREAKFAST is cuatro huevos revoltos (four scrambled eggs), pan (bread), and mate de coco (coco tea). Alisa has half the eggs I had, but otherwise the same. We’re doing alright for food since before the train trip we quickly snacked on granola with strawberry yogurt!

FAILURE occurs when we return to town to try and get my international student ID card which would cut many costs on this grande trip, including cutting the entry fee for Machu Picchu in half, from S/122 to S/61, or from $40.66 to $20.33. They would not merely accept my student ID card, even though Alisa’s int’l ID shows the same college and in the US this is all they required of her for her int’l card. In Cusco, Peru, they also require an expiration date on the card or proof that you are currently enrolled, neither of which I have handy. So we move on to our other errands for the day.

PACKING means consolidating our items for Machu Picchu into the day pack and my Osprey Porter 46, and leaving the rest of our stuff in Alisa’s big Osprey Exposure pack, locked and in storage at the Loki Hostel in Cusco, where we will return after this trip! We’re spreading our stuff all over the world!

LUCK is what we’ll need for this plan to work. The plan is to go to Ollaytaytambo and hope to convince people there to let us on the train, even if it means we have to stand up. This probably won’t work, but at worst it would mean staying in Ollaytaytambo for a night or two, which we’re OK with because we’ve been in Cusco long enough and need to start this journey to Machu Picchu!

COLECTIVOS are long-distance, four passenger minimum taxis. So Alisa and I share one with two other people, who apparently are going to Urubamba. So it won’t be a direct trip, but what can you do? We don’t make it to Ollaytaytambo in time for the 12:10 Backpacker train to Aguas Calientes, but we do get their soon after, which is nice because we still have plenty of daylight to figure things out in this new town! We can even go exploring!

LONG STORY SHORT is that there are indeed tickets, just not for the Backpacker rate of $31. Instead our options are a 4pm departure at a classy comfort-rate of $53 or a 7pm departure at a half-relaxed boxcar rate of $43. We decide that this is great that we can still make it there today, and decide on the better deal which also happens to allow us to explore this lovely town with ruins of its own!

FREE ruins are better than S/80 ruins. And the price is better, too! We lucked out again! From these free ruins we get an awesome view of the other ruins, which are more populated thanks to being on the tours that people take around Peru’s Cusco-based ruins. Also, we can take our time and just relax and enjoy the ruins without a bus or others waiting for us, or a guide yapping at us!

HOMEMADE restaurant in the plaza is fantastic. We get to walk up a winding staircase to the second-floor with a view of the main plaza indubitably named the Plaza de Armas, and order with confidence since the waiter tells us what is homemade and what is not and that the homemade items are WICKED GOOD!

THE GIST of this town, the things that make it stand out in the crowd of towns and cities strewn across Peru are the following: extremely brightly-colored bags and carpets of dizzying designs; canes with hilarious teethy heads and horns; alleyways and roads, most of which sport waterways that run on the edges and cross the “major” cobbly roads; a very touristy pick of restaurants with nearly identical menus, one of which even included French toast; two sets of ruins, at the edges of the small town, which is much closer than any other place we’ve been to! Kind of cool, Ollaytantambo, but six hours here is enough for us!

We head to the train station and wait as PERURAIL figures out its system. The train brings us through the darkness to Aguas Calientes, where it’s wet. We are met by someone representing our hostel –yes, we reserved a room for this heavy tourist town – and march our way through the rain.

INTERNET has been a problem this entire trip. Even when we do get wireless internet, it’s slow. Oftentimes in our experiences, when hostels say they have internet, either the power goes out for the block or their phone lines and internet stop working for the day we were hoping to stay there. At Pirwu hostel, our internet problem was different: there was none. When we used our precious internet time in Cusco, the Pirwu website claimed it had internet. Luis, our escort, told us that internet was only available at Pirwu’s other, more established locations. He then hands us a brochure that also touts Pirwu’s internet. We are not impressed and do not reserve our room for tomorrow night as we expected we would.

DINNER is good. A restaurant hooked us by cutting prices on the menu almost in half, which brought this otherwise expensive fireplace restaurant down to the cheapest in town! As a result, I ordered the Alpaca de la Parrilla (S/20 instead of S/32) and Alisa ordered the Fettuchini Alfredo (S/15 instead of something more). Even though Alisa received Spaghetti Alfredo, we both enjoyed our dinners and felt good about saving money in this expensive little town!