1/16/2010 - El Secreto En Las Montañas

As intelligent college students, we assumed that we knew exactly where to catch our train and how to navigate the streets of Peru. We were wrong. We left the hostel at 6:45am, thinking we would have more than enough time to walk several blocks to the station for a train that departed at 7:40am. However, our map of Cusco was anything but to-scale and we had to walk quite a bit further than anticipated. When we finally arrived at the PeruRail “Station,” we were informed that we had to catch the train at some point 15 km away. We hastily threw our bags into a taxi; it was 7:25 and we had a 25-minute drive ahead of us. Luckily our cab driver was speedy.

Now I consider myself to be a bit of a thrill seeker, but the next two hours of my life were a little too thrilling. Our cab driver zipped through the winding streets of Cusco at a pace that would for sure warrant a speeding ticket in the US. However, I’m not quite sure how fast he was going because his speedometer was broken (déjà vu – Callah, Jenna, Jae, and Kevin know what I’m talking about). Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t know. Nevertheless, we made it to the station alive, but unfortunately, the train was just pulling away. &$*%.

Because this was the only train to Machu Pichu that day, you can imagine that Megan, Paul, and I were a bit dismayed. Our taxi driver, however, was not. There was one more stop the train made en route to its destination, and he offered to drive us an hour to Ollantaytambo. Not having much of an option, we agreed to another joyride. The picture on the left is from out the window of the taxi, and the one of the right is Megan pretending to be calm sans seatbealt.

Every time I get an email from my mom, she tells me to be safe. Sorry mom, but this adventure was not the safest thing I’ve ever done. We were passing cars at high speeds on wet and winding mountain roads (think Colorado), and the best part is that there were no seatbelts. My heart was pumping the whole way, and at one point I saw our driver glance at the small picture of The Mother Mary on his dash and make The Sign of The Cross. Yikes. At least the scenery was beautiful and thankfully there were plenty of speed bumps to slow us down. We finally made it to Ollantaytambo just in time to catch the train, and after heartily thanking our driver we found our seats aboard the blue PeruRail train.

*For those of you who plan to travel to Machu Pichu one day: take the taxi. It’s one hell of a fun, scary, and scenic ride, and I wouldn’t trade that adventure for anything.

Our train dropped us off at the small town of Aguas Calientes, which is in the valley below Machu picchu. It is a very cool and vibrant village, separated into two halves by a roaring river and surrounded by the Andes. However, it is very much geared towards tourists which takes away some of the authenticity. Our hostel was not the greatest, as every thing felt very damp (especially our sheets) from the river, and it was fairly dirty because it was under repair. Nevertheless, the view from our room was awesome.

We decided to get some food at a local restaurant because it was happy hour. Apparently it is always happy hour in Aguas Calientes, with 4 for 1 deals throughout the entire town. There is a catch though. If you order just one beer, it costs 6 soles (the currency of Peru), but if you order the 4x1 special, the one beer costs 20 soles. Go figure. Anyways, after some delicious enchiladas we walked around the Indian market where I bought an awesome alpaca sweater and then got some food and drinks for our hike up to Machu picchu in the morning. Upon returning to our hostel, I climbed into my wet bed to rest up for another early morning.

*Two funny sites in Aguas Claientes

1. There are wild dogs everywhere in this city as well. When we were walking through the Indian market, I saw an older local woman sitting on the sidewalk and a dog standing nearby. Next I saw the dog walk up behind her, lift his leg, and pee on her back. Is she now his territory?

2. In a local shop, there was a television showing different commercials. One of the commercials was advertising a showing of Brokeback Mountain, which was cleverly called El secreto en las montanas (A secret in the mountains). Haha.