It is the dream and definitely one of the highlights on any journey in southamerica. Everybody wants to go to Machupicchu, the old inka-village in the middle of the Andes. Wanderers on a one week trip aswell as on a one year trip. You meet them all.
There are several ways to get there: On a organized hike, the most known would be the Inkatrail, where you hike for a couple of days through the jungle, accompanied by Peruvians, who build up tents for you and cook dinner at night. The tracks are supposed to be quite hard, but also very rewarding. You get really close to nature. The bad part: These tracks are very expensive. We are talking of about 300,- US Dollars per Person for four days.
Another way to get to Machupicchu is to take the train. It used to run from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, which is at the bottom of Machupicchu and kind of the base camp. Everybody has to stop here before going up to see the site, so Aguas Calientes really is a touristy place. We have just learned, that the train is not going from Cusco to Aguas Calientes any more, you have to take the bus to some town before and can only then enter the train. Sounds good? The problem: Also the train is very expensive! 50,- US Dollars for a trip during the day, 35,- US Dollars at night, one way! So that would be 140,- Dollars for Nadège and me at night. We said NO!
Only since two or three years, tourists with not so much money have found another way, the cheap way!
From Cusco, you have to take a bus to Santa Maria. This busride takes five to six hours. You go up over a mountain out of Cusco, then down into the next valley, and up again and down again until you reach Santa Maria. This sounds easy, but high up means 4000 Meters high, you are in the clouds and down means 4000 meters down, you are in the jungle! You start on a paved road, but it soon gets a gravel-road and it is a very bumpy ride, but the views are awesome!
The adventure really starts, when you take the collectivo from Santa Maria. It´s a gravel-road, and it´s not official. It goes along the mountain. You watch out of the window and it is going down very, very steep no more than twenty centimeters away from your car. If there is another car, you have to move these two cars around until you find a spot on the street where both
fit. It is really adventurous.
We were three people travelling together this time: Nadège, Stefan and Ocean from north of Toronto, Canada. We all laughed at the adventure, but we were
also happy, not to have to do it alone.
The ride from Santa-Maria to the Hydroelectricstation takes about one hour. At the hydroelectricstation, a small inofficial trainstation has evolved. From here, it takes another two hours to walk along the traintracks to Aguas Calientes. That is what we did. So, compare this:
- Inka-trail: 300,- US Dollars
- Train: 70,- US Dollars
- Bus + Collectivo + Walking: 25,- Soles per Person one way.
That´s a difference, isn´t it? And it´s fun also!
In Aguas Calientes (warm water) we lived in a fairly cheap, but good hostal, twenty soles per person per night. That´s allright. But everything else in this town is expensive. Twentytwo soles for a large pizza, seven soles for a small beer. Well, what can you do, you need to eat and drink something. The inhabitants are trying to press every sole out of the tourists, they think just because we are tourists, we have huge amounts of money to spend. Well, some tourists make mistakes, they spoil the Peruvians. We saw one man, asking
for the way to a restaurant. He got the answer and gave the lady twenty soles for the information. So, what do you expect? He meant well, but like this, it´s no wonder that the Peruvians think, we all have money like hay.
The next day we got up at five o´clock in the morning and started to walk up the steps to Machupicchu. Again, you can have it the comfortable way: There are busses going up, but one busride is twenty soles. So we walked. It takes two hours and it is quite breathtaking, in both meanings. We arrived at Machupicchu but decided to walk straight on up the Huaynapicchu, the mountain behind Machupicchu. The view is supposed to be amazing. It takes another hour to walk up the steep steps and I was scared from time to time. It is hard to breath, and it is high and steep. One false step, and your life could be over. But we made it to the top, and the view is really great, awesome, breathtaking and ... yeah!
We stayed one or two hours at the top and enjoyed the view. I went down a little, I couldn´t stand the altitude anymore. I even took a nap. We went down the Huaynapicchu two hours later. We had to buy a small bottle of water at the bottom of Huaynapicchu and we payed five soles for one. Then we took our time to stroll around Machupicchu. Really, that is something! But you are not the only one, there are many tourists around.
Down to Aguas Calientes at around four in the afternoon, all by foot again, and had a nice evening at the town, pizza again. We stayed the next day just to relax our bones. And then back to Cusco the day after, the way we came, walking along the tracks, collectivo from the hydrostation to Santa-Maria, six hours in the bus and arriving at Cusco at eight at night.
Yes, Machupicchu really is a dream and one of the highlights of Southamerica!