As I said on Facebook, “Our trip was almost RUINed many times, but Machu Picchu was INCAredible.” Here’s the tale of the weekend, mostly from the words of my sister, with a few bits of my own perspective mixed in…
Friday afternoon, I quickly left the lunch table to finish packing and head to the Plaza de Armas to meet up with Emma and her friend, Becky. We paid the rest of the balance on our MP trip, checked into the hostel (very nice, based on my experience), dropped off our things and went to a class at the Chocolate Museum. We had a lot of fun there! The class was in English but the guide was very informative and we learned a lot about making chocolate from scratch. The guide even tried to make me use my blood to make a chocolate drink like the Mayans used to… The joke lasted a bit too long and I really couldn’t tell if he was seriously trying to stick a sharpened toothpick underneath my tongue. The class lasted about two and a half hours and at the end we got to make our own chocolates and take them home. Definitely a highlight of the trip! My chocolates ended up melting in my bag throughout the weekend, but that didn’t stop me from eating them, naturally.
Friday afternoon, I quickly left the lunch table to finish packing and head to the Plaza de Armas to meet up with Emma and her friend, Becky. We paid the rest of the balance on our MP trip, checked into the hostel (very nice, based on my experience), dropped off our things and went to a class at the Chocolate Museum. We had a lot of fun there! The class was in English but the guide was very informative and we learned a lot about making chocolate from scratch. The guide even tried to make me use my blood to make a chocolate drink like the Mayans used to… The joke lasted a bit too long and I really couldn’t tell if he was seriously trying to stick a sharpened toothpick underneath my tongue. The class lasted about two and a half hours and at the end we got to make our own chocolates and take them home. Definitely a highlight of the trip! My chocolates ended up melting in my bag throughout the weekend, but that didn’t stop me from eating them, naturally.
Afterwards, we went out to dinner and then came back to the hostel to get ready to go out for the night. We went to two discotecas and stayed out far too late but we had a great time. We woke up VERY early the next day to start our Machu Picchu trip. Our trip on Saturday was actually a “tour” of the Sacred Valley. Of course, the tour bus was 30 minutes late picking us up, so that was a good start to the trip… We took a bus from Cusco to Pisac, about 45 minutes away, where there are some really nice ruins. Becky and Emma got off the bus to go home since they had already toured the ruins. The tour guide said it was fine and that they should meet the bus at 12:40 pm on the corner where all the other big tour buses are. Meanwhile, I stayed on the bus to go up to the ruins, which turned out to be really nice. I even made a friend sitting next to me – a fellow American working in Lima for the summer.
Of course, when we went back down to the town very late since our tour guide had no control over our group. Granted, I walk fast, but I managed to walk around all the ruins and take plenty of pictures, and I was still the first one back on the bus. When we reached to the spot, Emma and Becky weren’t there. The bus driver was quite sassy with me, asking where they were and telling me to call them – though obviously I had no idea where they were since we were 35 minutes late, and I couldn’t call them because none of us have phones. The tour guide looked around the area for approximately 3 minutes before saying, “They’re not here, we’re leaving.” Naturally, I gave her plenty of attitude for the next bit of the way, since it was obviously very unprofessional for her to simply leave two of her passengers in the first city that we were supposed to visit.
Emma’s account of that time: “We waited in the spot where she said to be for 30 minutes passed the time she said and couldn’t find the bus anywhere. We paced up and down the street just in case we missed it but there was nothing. Assuming we had missed the bus somehow and having no way to get in touch with anyone on the bus (admittedly stupid that we didn’t ask for the tour guide’s number before getting off), we went to a pay phone and called the tour company to find out what restaurant they were going to in Urubamba, about 1 hour away. Of course, the man on the phone didn’t know and asked me to call back in 5 minutes to give him time to call each tour group and find out what restaurant they were going to. I called back and he told me the name of the restaurant. We then had to take a separate van to get there which took about an hour and 15 minutes because of all the stops the vans make in different places along the way. We thankfully found the restaurant within 5 minutes of the group leaving. Having not eaten since 8:00 am (it was now after 2), we asked to eat and the tour guide gave us a very hard time about eating anything saying that people had a train to catch. We naturally said we did not care at all that others had a train to catch, since clearly she did not care that WE had a bus to catch at 12:40 and were unable to do that. Finally, she gave me a to-go box of food to take with us.”
Needless to say, it was an anxious 2 hours. Thankfully I had made a friend on the bus who sat with me at lunch and calmed me down a little bit! I knew that Emma and Becky would make it to our train at 9:00 pm no matter what, but thankfully we were able to meet up much earlier than that.
Next we visited the ruins at Ollantaytambo, which I thought were even cooler than the ruins at Pisac (perhaps I’ll post pictures when I get home and the internet is stronger.) I was definitely a bit frustrated that the tour guide kept on not translating much of what she was saying into English, not because I couldn’t understand her Spanish but because there were non-Spanish speakers on our tour. After the tour, we walked around the little town, had dinner, had some questionable dessert, and walked to the train station to catch the train to Aguas Calientes (the town for all tourists going to Machu Picchu). The train was actually quite lovely and gave us snacks. Snacks + no more horrible tour guide = happy MacLeans. Upon arrival in Aguas Calientes we were met by a nice man and woman holding a sign for “Enma, Sara y Bicky”. They walked us to our hostel for the night. We had our own 3 person room with a bathroom (though that didn’t have toilet paper… no pasa nada). Sleep was once again a luxury we were not allowed to enjoy for very long because we had to get up at 4 am for the first bus to Machu Picchu at 5:30. We went to the main square where we were supposed to meet the man from the agency, Jonathan, who had our tickets. In true Peruvian fashion, he was 20 minutes late, and once again we forgot to get his phone number the night before. When we went in to the Cultural Center to get our tickets, the desk clerk demanded that we have our original passports. None of us had the originals, as we asked MULTIPLE people if we needed the originals before we left and they all said no. Jonathan talked to the clerk and “magically” the clerk no longer needed our passports… as in, they were never actually necessary anyway. Jonathan actually turned out to be our “tour guide” and then let us essentially cut the ENTIRE line for the buses (at least 5 blocks long): the only thing he was useful for. On the bus, he proceeded to hit on Becky in his broken English and Emma sassed him in Spanish to get him to stop. Upon arrival to Machu Picchu (20 minute bus ride from the town), we were a bit nervous that we once again would be asked for our passports and wouldn’t be allowed in, but we almost cried tears of joy when we actually made it into the park.
We were told there would be a Spanish version of the tour and an English version. Jonathan was doing the English version… we went with the Spanish guide. Luckily, he spoke slowly enough so that Emma could understand most of what he said and I could basically give them the other parts when I was actually paying attention (the scenery is just really beautiful.) Machu Picchu was so very beautiful and the entire place is about 70-80% original Inca work and only 30-20% restored. We were smart to get there early because by 10 am the place was packed with people. We took a lot of pictures (the best ones with the llamas that were running around) and did a lot of walking around the ruins. We were impressed you could walk all inside the ruins and take photos of everything. Overall, a very cool experience visiting one of the 7 wonders of the world!
After about 4 hours there, we walked back down the mountain to the town. This took about an hour and my legs hate me for it today. Even though it was down hill, the horribly paved roads/steps we walked down made for a great trek. When we got back to Aguas Calientes we had lunch, watched a bit of soccer and then went to the hostel to get our things. We got the train back and then split up so I could go back to Cusco and they could go back to Pisac. When we finally arrived back home, we could say the weekend was a success.
Emma’s account of that time: “We waited in the spot where she said to be for 30 minutes passed the time she said and couldn’t find the bus anywhere. We paced up and down the street just in case we missed it but there was nothing. Assuming we had missed the bus somehow and having no way to get in touch with anyone on the bus (admittedly stupid that we didn’t ask for the tour guide’s number before getting off), we went to a pay phone and called the tour company to find out what restaurant they were going to in Urubamba, about 1 hour away. Of course, the man on the phone didn’t know and asked me to call back in 5 minutes to give him time to call each tour group and find out what restaurant they were going to. I called back and he told me the name of the restaurant. We then had to take a separate van to get there which took about an hour and 15 minutes because of all the stops the vans make in different places along the way. We thankfully found the restaurant within 5 minutes of the group leaving. Having not eaten since 8:00 am (it was now after 2), we asked to eat and the tour guide gave us a very hard time about eating anything saying that people had a train to catch. We naturally said we did not care at all that others had a train to catch, since clearly she did not care that WE had a bus to catch at 12:40 and were unable to do that. Finally, she gave me a to-go box of food to take with us.”
Needless to say, it was an anxious 2 hours. Thankfully I had made a friend on the bus who sat with me at lunch and calmed me down a little bit! I knew that Emma and Becky would make it to our train at 9:00 pm no matter what, but thankfully we were able to meet up much earlier than that.
Next we visited the ruins at Ollantaytambo, which I thought were even cooler than the ruins at Pisac (perhaps I’ll post pictures when I get home and the internet is stronger.) I was definitely a bit frustrated that the tour guide kept on not translating much of what she was saying into English, not because I couldn’t understand her Spanish but because there were non-Spanish speakers on our tour. After the tour, we walked around the little town, had dinner, had some questionable dessert, and walked to the train station to catch the train to Aguas Calientes (the town for all tourists going to Machu Picchu). The train was actually quite lovely and gave us snacks. Snacks + no more horrible tour guide = happy MacLeans. Upon arrival in Aguas Calientes we were met by a nice man and woman holding a sign for “Enma, Sara y Bicky”. They walked us to our hostel for the night. We had our own 3 person room with a bathroom (though that didn’t have toilet paper… no pasa nada). Sleep was once again a luxury we were not allowed to enjoy for very long because we had to get up at 4 am for the first bus to Machu Picchu at 5:30. We went to the main square where we were supposed to meet the man from the agency, Jonathan, who had our tickets. In true Peruvian fashion, he was 20 minutes late, and once again we forgot to get his phone number the night before. When we went in to the Cultural Center to get our tickets, the desk clerk demanded that we have our original passports. None of us had the originals, as we asked MULTIPLE people if we needed the originals before we left and they all said no. Jonathan talked to the clerk and “magically” the clerk no longer needed our passports… as in, they were never actually necessary anyway. Jonathan actually turned out to be our “tour guide” and then let us essentially cut the ENTIRE line for the buses (at least 5 blocks long): the only thing he was useful for. On the bus, he proceeded to hit on Becky in his broken English and Emma sassed him in Spanish to get him to stop. Upon arrival to Machu Picchu (20 minute bus ride from the town), we were a bit nervous that we once again would be asked for our passports and wouldn’t be allowed in, but we almost cried tears of joy when we actually made it into the park.
We were told there would be a Spanish version of the tour and an English version. Jonathan was doing the English version… we went with the Spanish guide. Luckily, he spoke slowly enough so that Emma could understand most of what he said and I could basically give them the other parts when I was actually paying attention (the scenery is just really beautiful.) Machu Picchu was so very beautiful and the entire place is about 70-80% original Inca work and only 30-20% restored. We were smart to get there early because by 10 am the place was packed with people. We took a lot of pictures (the best ones with the llamas that were running around) and did a lot of walking around the ruins. We were impressed you could walk all inside the ruins and take photos of everything. Overall, a very cool experience visiting one of the 7 wonders of the world!
After about 4 hours there, we walked back down the mountain to the town. This took about an hour and my legs hate me for it today. Even though it was down hill, the horribly paved roads/steps we walked down made for a great trek. When we got back to Aguas Calientes we had lunch, watched a bit of soccer and then went to the hostel to get our things. We got the train back and then split up so I could go back to Cusco and they could go back to Pisac. When we finally arrived back home, we could say the weekend was a success.