MACHU PICHU ON THE CHEAP

We went to Machu Picchu in the middle of April, 2012.

We had read in the Lonely Planet there was a bus route to Santa Maria, which would get you close to the train station on the western side of MP. The bus leaves from the Santiago station in Cusco, which you can easily walk to from Plaza de Armas. We got a ticket for the Salva Sur bus company, and the bus was scheduled to leave at 8am, but true to Latin American style, it left at 8:30. It was a really shitty, dirty bus, and there was a guy with a live chicken sitting behind us (which wasn't bad, it was a very well behaved chicken.) The buses leave all morning, but if you want to get to Agua Caliente before dark, I'd take one at 7am. The other bus company is Ampay, which we took on the way back, and although it was a nicer bus, there was a small roach crawling on the wall next to me. So, take your pick! The Ampay bus left at the same times from the Santiago station. They were also the same price, which was 15 Soles (about $6). This is a 5 – 6 hour bus ride, so it's pretty cheap.

The bus doesn't stop for potty or food purchasing, really. It did stop, I'm not sure if it was to let people pee, but it was not at a bathroom, so if you peed, it would have to be in the woods/nature surrounding. People do get on the bus to sell food, however. I got a snack, which was a boiled egg surrounded in mash potato and deep fried. Really good.

The drive is beautiful. It winds slowly up a huge mountain, and it also goes through a very cute town.... If you have time and want to be leisurely, you could even get off here and spend the night if you want. It's touristy, with hostels and lots of restaurants.

Then you go on to Santa Maria, which is a dusty, ugly town. They will announce it when you get there, since a lot of people get off. When you get off, taxi drivers will surround you and want to take you to the next town, Santa Teresa, or the Hydro station, which is where the train station is too, and is about 8km past Santa Teresa. The last train to Agua Caliente is at 4:30pm and costs $18 USD one way, so if you want to catch that, then tell your taxi driver you want to leave now. If you want to walk from the Hydro station, it's about a 2.5 – 3 hour walk. This is why you have to start as early as possible, because walking in the dark sucked. We did it. Sunset is around 5:45 in April. We paid 15 Soles to take a taxi straight to the Hydro station from Santa Maria. If you are going to do the same, and walk up to Agua Caliente from there, you should get something to eat in Santa Maria, so you have energy. The walk isn't hard, just long. But if you want you can stay the night in Santa Teresa. It's got several hostels and restaurants, and is a nicer town then Santa Maria. The ride to Santa Teresa should only be 10 Soles. Also, we wanted to leave right away, because we thought we might want to catch the train. At the time we didn't know the train to Agua Caliente was $18 USD. Our driver was lagging, trying to get more people in the cab (they will PACK it in) and so we got out and took another driver. The drive is on the edge of a mountain, and is not paved, and goes through rivers, so it's a bit freaky, but the drivers seem very competent. Our driver stopped briefly in Santa Teresa and put 3 more people in the car, so there was a total of 7 passengers (2 in the trunk, it was a station wagon).

We got to the Hydro station at 4:30 on the dot, and when we found out it was $18 USD to ride the train to Agua Caliente, we decided to walk. It was drizzling, so we bought ponchos for 2 Soles as the station, and Jesse bought a couple beers. There is food and drink there too, as well as a hostel that looked pretty decent.

To walk up to Agua, you literally follow the train tracks. You can cut up the hill at a couple places. There is a red, dubious looking metal bridge, and there are several bridges over rivers that you have to walk over the wood slabs of the tracks, which was slightly freaky, especially in the dark. If you don't want to walk in the dark, I'd suggest checking what time the sunset is and planning accordingly. After a couple hours you will get to a shabby looking “train station,” but you need to keep walking along the tracks another 20 minutes to get to the town of Agua Caliente. You will walk through 2 tunnels and over the tracks over several small rivers. The tracks will take you right to the middle of the town. There are nice restaurants and hotels everywhere. We stayed at the first hotel on the right of the tracks as you walk into town, something Pichu. It was only 20 soles a person, and it was clean, with warm water. Of course, it's pretty loud due to the train.

It's such a touristy town and over-priced, so the restaurants are all stupid expensive. Our hotel didn't have a kitchen, so we had to eat out. There wasn't much in the way of a grocery store anyway. We found a place deep in the town on the right side of the tracks, that had a soup and main course for 7 soles. Everything else was around 20 for a set lunch, and of course, went much higher then that.

When you get to town, go and buy your Machu Pichu tickets right away, since they only let 2,500 people in a day. I'd check the weather before you leave Cusco, just to make sure it won't rain, although on the day we went it wasn't supposed to rain, but it started raining at about noon. So bring your raincoats anyway!

We took the bus up from Agua to MP. It's $9 each way, and a bit more for only one way, so if there are two of you, get one round trip ticket and use the return trip as your other one way. They don't look at the tickets.

We didn't get a guide at MP, but there are tons of them at the gate. We had read about it before hand, but a guide would have been nice to explain some of the details of the rocks. There are tons of tours though, so we listened in on them.

The ticket to MP says you can't bring food or plastic bottles inside, but there were people everywhere with both...

We took the stairs back down to Agua. It was pretty painful, after walking the day before and all around MP for a few hours. But it was also cool. When you get to the bridge at the bottom of the hill there is a little restaurant. We had a beer, before continuing along the road to Agua. But we hitch hiked almost immediately, which was nice, since it was raining!

The next morning we left to walk back along the tracks to the Hydro at 7:30am. We weren't sure how it was all going to work out regarding taxi's and buses. We knew a train left Agua for the Hydro at 8:30, so there would be taxi's waiting for those passengers at about 9:30, and another train left Agua at 12:30. We got to the Hydro station and there was a mini bus waiting which was going to a town ten minutes walk from Santa Teresa, and cost us 4 soles each. So we took it. We saw people along the road walking from Santa Teresa to the Hydro, which seemed a bit crazy, as it's about 8km and it's not as nice a walk as along the tracks to Agua.

We got out of the mini bus down the road from Santa Teresa, and walked a few minutes, then up a huge staircase, then to the right, and we were in the town. We walked down to the main square. At first we couldn't figure out where to get a cab. There were three empty ones lined up, and we waited by them, but nothing happened. Jesse went to ask some random people where to go, and they directed us to a street connected to the main square that had hostels and restaurants on it. There was a cab hanging out, who said he'd take us to Santa Maria for 10 soles. When we got to Santa Maria, the cabby told us we could buy a mini bus ticket for 30 soles, Salva Sur bus for 15, or Ampay for 15. The ticket offices are right on the main strip that the buses and cabs stop at. The Ampay place has a sign out front and is a restaurant/shop. We got the next Ampay bus, which was at 2:30, which meant waiting over 2 hours. The bus didn't come until 3pm, however.

We got into Cusco at about 8:30pm.

We had left our big bags at our hotel, and just booked a room for that night at the hotel as well.

Peru... the last country.

We got a bus out of Copa the next day to go to Puno, in Peru. In Puno there are “floating islands,” which are literally made out of mud and reeds and kind of float in shallow water. When the Inca showed up they pushed the local people out, and they made these islands. It was pretty cool, and we bought a couple hand made things. We met a couple from Louisiana on the boat who had just graduated from med school at Tulane, and were on a 3 week vacation before they went to their residencies in Sonoma, California. We had dinner with them that night. The next day my stomach wasn't great, and we were a bit hung over, so we just lounged around and watched TV. Then the next day we went to Cusco, so we could get to Machu Pichu.

We got a pretty good hotel in Cusco, only 50 soles for a room a night, including breakfast. My stomach got really bad the next day, and I couldn't walk around town much. It is a really really cool town. There are tons of old colonial churches, but what makes them cool is that a lot of them are built using Inca foundations and bottom stones, so you can see them along the bottom of a lot of buildings. Cusco was a major Inca city before the Spanish came and pillaged it. The Inca used gold as decoration, and there were whole plazas in gold with gold statues. Yeah, those got stolen. The huge Inca stones are incredible. They cut them so exactly to fit together so they didn't have to use mud or any other type of sticking substance. It's amazing how they did it.

The next morning we were planning to go to Machu Pichu, but we found out too late that the buses only left in the early morning. Which was fine with me, to have another day to recover from my stomach. We went to another museum, the indigenous art museum, and it was really good. Then we ate lunch at this super cool British pub. I had fish and chips of course! With mushy peas! Jesse had bangers and mash.Both really good. It was strange to be in such modern, comfortable surroundings like Cusco (even though Cusco is the most colonial looking place I've probab

We left early the next morning on an adventurous adventure to get to Machu Pichu for $28. This involved a 6 hour dirty bus ride up to the top of what felt like the tallest mountain in the world, winding around back and forth for hours, a cramped taxi ride along the edge of another mountain, but on an unpaved road, and then a 3 hour walk along train tracks, over bridges and under tunnels, half of which was in the dark and all of which was in drizzly rain.

BOLIVIA PART II

After our tour, we took the 1am train from Uyuni to Oruo (yes, AM). We stayed there a night, before we went to La Paz, because we were couchsurfing in La Paz, and couchsuring is pretty tiring, because you have to be polite and tidy and sociable, even when you're exhausted. So, we wanted to rest. But when we got to La Paz the next day, our host showed us to an apartment on the 9^th floor of a downtown building and said, “This is your apartment, ours is one floor up.” I almost cried with joy! We hadn't had access to our own private bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen in 5 months. I was so excited. The view was amazing as well. La Paz is entwined in a deep valley with hills and mountains. We could see the whole of one face of a mountain, with all the houses on it.

The first day there, our hosts, Martin and his wife Sisi, took us to their country home, where they made us an amazing asado. Martin brought his parents domestic assistant and their spaniel, who was actually named Mini Me! I was also so grateful for a good meal, because Bolivian food is not something someone from San Francisco can easily adapt to. It's mostly chicken and rice, pork chop and rice, or some variation. Martin made us barbeque chicken and sausage. There was an avacado salad, a cheesy rice dish, and potatoes. It was amazing! Then the clouds rolled in, and we went home. That evening Martin and Sisi drove us around town so we could see it at night. Then they took us to the mall and we had coffee.

We spent our days in La Paz walking around, visiting a couple museums, eating, etc. We also had internet in the apartment, so we spent time uploading pictures, emailing, etc. I tried to call Mom, but as always, the connection was bad.

In La Paz there is a jail where a British man was jailed for five years for trying to smuggle cocaine out of the country in 2000 and wrote a book about his experience.. He became a “tour guide” at this very, very strange jail, where prisoners lived in apartments which they had to purchase when they entered the jail, with their entire families. There were restaurants and shops in the jail as well, because the prisoners needed to make money. The Lonely Planet guide book used to list this jail as a thing to do in La Paz, because the British man was running tours. However, today, Lonely Planet does not advise it. But Jesse and I had both read the book and wanted to at least see the outside. The jail is on a square, so we just sat in the square and watched as women and children walked in and out of the door. There were other backpackers there watching too! The book is going to be a movie with Brad Pitt, apparently, if it's made.

We finally left La Paz after 5 days and headed to a small mountain town called Coroico. To get to it, you have to take the road that replaced the famed “death road.” The replacement road was pretty freaky too, as it's really really high, with lots of corners. There were three little girls sitting in front of me on the minibus, and one of them had a black and white cat in her back pack. The cat sat on their lap sleeping the entire trip. And when we got to Coroico, she zipped it up entirely in her backpack!

In Coroico, we stayed at a resort/hostel on the side of the mountain. We were camping. The campsite was pretty nice, with a nice fire pit and covered table. There were two German guys camping next to us, who we ended up hanging out with the next two nights, cooking meat on the fire and drinking rum and cokes. They had purchased motorcycles in Sucre, and so they took us on the back of their bikes to see some nearby waterfalls. It was pretty freaky at first, but I got used to it. They are planning on riding all the way up through California with the bikes. They are both mechanical engineers, so were able to work on them when they broke down.

There were horrible sand flies in Coroico, and we got bitten up. And the bites itch and leave awful marks.

We were in Coroico over Easter weekend, which, for Latins, is a week long celebration called “Semana Santa.” Trying to leave town on Monday to go back to La Paz was not easy. Everyone had left the city to go to the towns for a getaway weekend. During our efforts, we met a couple from New Zealand who we joined forces with to hire a taxi to get to La Paz. It was a mini van. We went back along the same road, and after a couple hours we were back in La Paz. Sophie and Oliver took us to the hostel they had stayed at, and it was pretty nice. We booked a tourist bus for early the next morning to take us to Copacabana, on the border with Peru. Then we went out for dinner, and they took us to a great restaurant they knew, where we got a massive leg of lamb for about $6 USD. It was amazing!

We were up early and the bus picked us up at our hostel (such luxury!) and it took us a few hours to get to Copacabana. At one point we had to cross part of lake Titicaca. We had to get out and buy tickets for the boat, ride this tiny boat across, while our bus was put onto a barge and ferried across.

We got into Copa, and the four of us found a decent hostel and went to eat. We were there to see Isla de Sol, which is an island in Lake Titicaca that the Inca believed the sun god was born on. We booked our tickets for the next day, but it was pouring and pouring, so we decided not to go. Sophie and Oliver just left town, but Jesse and I wanted to see the island, so we waited until the next day, which was beautiful. While we were on the island we saw the two German guys from Coroico! We knew they were going there, we just didn't know when.

We had planned to stay the night on the island, but because of the weather we didn't get to. So the tour was kind of rushed. We went to the north part and took a walking tour of the ruins. We walked along an old Ampaya-laid stone pathway. The Ampaya were living on the island before the Inca showed up. Then we got to the rock, where the Inca believed the sun was born. There were ruins of an old temple there too. And under the water, near the island, were the remains of another temple, which Jacque Custeau had discovered. The lake had risen over the years and buried the temple. Then we had to sprint back down to dock and take the boat to the south part of the island, where we climbed up some huge Inca steps, which the villagers still used as a functional part of their city.

We got back to the mainland, had dinner, then got a drink with the German guys. They told us their crazy story about trying to get to Copacabana. Their GPS had them go through Peru. When then entered, they didn't do the paperwork for their bikes, so they thought they'd just sneak back into Bolivia, then do the paperwork when they went to go back into Peru. Seriously. This is what they thought. So when they went around the chain to get into Bolivia, of course they were caught by the cops, who kept them waiting and waiting in customs, until finally, they hinted that they would let them go if they gave them money. They wanted $100 USD, and since there was a sign on the wall that said “No Corruption Here,” the German boys were not having it. They got away with 40 bolivianos. So crazy.

Well... here we are in Santiago!  I have some catching up to do on my blog!  We got here Monday late afternoon, after a 30 hour bus ride from Arica, Chile.  We are staying downtown with our friends Alex and Naoko.  We've done nothing but hang out with them and our other friends since we got here, drinking beer and eating!  Yesterday was May Day, and so no Chileans work.  None of the stores were open. So we went to the park and sat around and then made pizzas.  It was fun.

Today I'm going to run a few errands, get some gifts, do laundry.

I've arranged to meet up with a few old students, so I'm excited about that!  I really miss my students.

It feels weird and wrong to be leaving Santiago. We have so many good friends, and we love the city. It's got great weather (apart from the smog!), great public transit, great parks and museums and malls and culture.  And great people.  If I didn't have to teach English, and if I could actually speak Spanish, I'd rather live here then the States.

My flight to Kentucky is on May 9th at 1am.  

I will keep posting about our last weeks in Bolivia and Peru!

Chao!
annie