Blogpost 9 - Cusco and MachuPicchu

An early start to the airport in Arequipa got us to Cusco by early afternoon and checked into our nice Hotel, about 10 minutes walk from the Main Plaza. We decided that noisy hostels were not our thing and have upgraded a bit. Still less than $100 per night.Our large room has an extensive view out over the city.

Cusco is an interesting place and not like the other cities we had visited so far in SA. The central old part of the city has a very European look to it. Lots of fountains. Large a small plazas and a heaps and heaps of tourists.

Cusco is the place you visit Manchu Picchu from so there are tourists of all ages and types here with hotels and restaurants catering for all that mix.

We went on a very interesting walking tour of the city where the guide explained the Inka and Spannish history associated with the city and the Inka emptier that covered a large portion of western South America from Columbia in the north to Chile in the south and west into the headwaters of the Amazon.

Of lot of the buildings in the city have combined old Inka walls in their more recent buildings.

There are a significant number of Inka ruins both within the city and in the surrounding fringes. We had a guided tour of Saqsaymanan archaelogical site located right on the northern edge of the city. The Inka’s were very skilled craftsman and built some amazing stone structures and building. See photos.

Visiting Machu Picchu has been an interesting process. We booked a trip from Cusco to Macau Picchu on line the night before we left Arequipa only to be advised very early next morning that they had a cancelled it for reasons unknown to us. All the web sites say that there were no tickets available to visit the sit for our dates. This put us into a mild panic but we decided to wait until we reached Cusco ass Anna told us that the tour companies rebook tickets. Fortunately the man at the desk in the hotel we are staying at had good contacts in the travel business and got it all sorted for us so we had a few days in Cusco with out having to worry before we headed to Machu Picchu.

We have found that booking tours on-line is very expensive. The tour we did was half the price of the one we tried to book on- but was the same tour.

So on Wednesday morning it was up early for a quick breakfast before catching a taxi to the tour bus station. Then a very comfortable 2.5 hour mini bus ride took us to Ollantaytambo. The ride took us up and out of Cusco and over the hills to the what is known as the Sacred valley. It’s just beautiful. It’s extensively and productively farmed, the most extensive we have seen yet in SA so it looks lush and inviting.

At Ollantaytambo we changed from the bus to a scenic train to travel up the narrow valley to Aguas Calientes, or more correctly named, Manchu Picchu Village. The bus and the train system is all owned by one company and is very well run. The whole setup is very slick and runs like clockwork. The train station and the guides who organised everyone onto the train have a very strong Inka styling.

On arriving at Manchu Picchu Village along with a few hundred other eager travelers we were greeted by our hotel person and taken to our hotel. The $50 a night room we were allocated had no outside windows but I managed to get that changed. However it must have been the noisiest room in the hotel and noise in the street below didn’t quieten down until about 3 in the morning. Not one of our better nights.

Once booked into the hotel it was off to the Machi Picchu ticket office to get out ticket to get into the site. What a process. Firstly you had to queue for a reservation number which they handed out at 3 pm and then return at 6.30 pm to line up for the ticket. They limit the numbers allowed onto the Manchu Picchu site every day and depending on which ticket you get, you may be limited to not being able to access the whole site. We finally managed to get the full site ticket but there were only about 10 tickets left after us but a long queue of hopeful people behind us. Some of them would have missed out and other would have obtained a reduced access ticket. It was an incredible relief to have the ticket in our hot little hands.

Our entry time to the site was for the slot 1pm to 2 pm so we met our guide in the main Plaza along with a very dim American chap we caught the bus up the steep switchback road to the entry gate. There were people everywhere despite the so called limited numbers but the splendor of the site was such that it not overly detract from the experience. Our guide explained the history of the site and then took us on a 2.5hr walk over the ruins. Machu Picchu is clearly not the home of the Inka Empire. It was most likely Cusco. It is understood that the site was used by the Inka Royalty for special religious festivals and holidays. I undersides that about 500 people lived at the site full time. Maintained the site and farmed the adjacent terraces. The site has a bid central grassed area where traders would come from all over the region to trade and supply the site with produce they couldn’t produce on the site.

We were back down in Manchu Picchu Village at about 4.30. Our train back to Ollantaytambo left at 6.30 and finally arrived back in Cusco at 11 pm after a very full-on 2 days. The waiting around for the tickets was very frustrating but overall the trip was well worth the effort.

We visited another museum today that dealt with the Inka and post Inkatha (Spanish) period and walked right across the city to a lookout tower after first having chicken soup in the big local market. Quite an experience.

Back in the hotel for a break now before again for dinner.

We fly to Quito in Ecuador tomorrow morning for a few days before we head to Galapagos.