We’re still working on getting caught up on the blog, so here’s another one. It’s really hard to write all this stuff, especially when we have to spend our days walking around and eating constantly.
Anyways, we took break from Cusco, heading to Ollyantantambo. Ollyatantambo is a little town of the Sacred Valley. It pretty much exists for the sole purpose of tourists, as its the last town before jumping on the Inca Trail. Lots of little sweet boutique hotels, coffee shops, and restaurants. There’s a bunch of old Inca building there, and some ruins. Evidently there some of the oldest continuously habitated(Is that a word? Spellcheck doesn’t like it.) buildings in the world there.
So we managed to find the cheapest place in town. It smelled like animals and sweat, so naturally we booked two nights. I think we were the only ones there the first night.
We checked out Urambamba, another nearby town the next day. There’s really nothing to see in Urambamba. There was alot to smell, however. The Salineras at Mara was nearby, so we decided to check that out. A few taxi drivers wanted to charge us 60 soles,to drive us there and Moray which is another ancient inca thing. But Moray would have cost another 70 soles each to visit. They sell tickets to visit a lot of these Inca ruins, but are sold in packages of 4 sites each, and you only have a couple days to use it. And the places are not right next to each other. And we’re balling on a budget, so no Moray for us. Actually, we didn’t go see any “other” ruins in the Sacred Valley, but evidently they are everywhere. We did, however, find a taxi for 3 soles to take us to a bus stop where we got private bus ride to the Salineras for 20 soles. It would have been less, but we were the only ones riding, and it appeared we were the only ones taking that route all day.
The Salineras are awesome. It’s a collection of thousands of shallow pools carved into the side of a mountain all fed by an underground salt spring. Something like that. They’re really shallow, so the water evaporates pretty quick, leaving the salt to collect on the sides. It looks like snow, but it’s rock salt, and not fluffy soft snow. Some of the pools have been with some families for hundreds of years. So there were families out there collecting 50kg bags of salt while we walked around and tried not to fall in a pool of salt. The unprocessed salt right out of the pools is really salty. (Crazy, I know.) The 50kg bags they collect are sold for 15 soles( less than $5) each, with most of it going to Japan, I think they said. I also think that they thought that I wanted to buy a really big bag of salt. Which I did consider. We did buy a few 200g bags for 2 soles each. What I was thinking is that we buy a bunch of salt, import it to US, and sell it to the Wholefoods crowd for $10 a bag for this organic, unprocessed, hand harvested, Peruvian super duper salt. Anyone trying to go in on a shipping container full of it?
The sun started to go down, which made the view of the salt pans really cool with all the different colors. We decided to hike down the mountain and catch a bus back to Ollantaytantambo. The hike was cool. Down the mountain, through a little village, next to a river, across the Rainbow bridge (not a real rainbow), the wrong way down a dirt road, then right way down a dirt road with some cows and dogs, until we finally got to the main road.
Usually, its very easy to catch a bus. You just wave it down and hop on, no matter how many people are already on it. It’s great. Except today. This day, the buses were all too full to stop. It’s only because we decided to ride the bus today. We walked down the side of the road for a long time before a random car stopped and took us to town. It may have been a taxi driver. It was probably just some dude driving to town and trying make a couple extra buck on the way. There was a couple of other of passengers, a security guard in his way to work, and the driver’s 4 year old kid. Except it really wasn’t the driver’s kid, it was just a random little kid catching a ride to another town by himself. A kid that age can’t even go outside by themselves without parents getting arrested in the US. Wild stuff. Anyways, we were really glad we got a ride, because that walk would have really, really sucked. There was a large group of kids staying in our hotel that night, and I think they were trying to play rugby in the hallways all night.
Took a bus to Hidroelectrica the next morning to start our tiny hike to Aguas Calientes. This bus(large, overcrowded van) was the least fun one we have been on yet. The driver was actually the most…docile of all the drivers we’ve had yet. But making up for it was the rain and fog reducing visibility to about 25-30 feet while we drove on partially paved roads up and down mountains. That part was not fun. And lucky us, we were the last ones on, and everyone decided to save us the front seats, so we got see everything. It also involved a quick stop in Santa Theresa, where we out for a pit stop and got absolutely dominated by mosquitoes in a matter of 46.725 seconds. Like absolutely crushed. Like not even funny. But we got to Hidroelectrica in one piece.
Hidroelectrica is a hydro-electric plant, if you didn’t figure that out yet. The train tracks to Machu Picchu run along next to it, and then all the way to Aguas Calientes, so its become a popular way for budget travelers to get there, because the train is so stupidly expensive. Like hundred and hundred of dollars. Someone is making a shitload of money on the trains, and its definitely not the Peruvians working onboard. Anyways, in Hidroelectrica, a bunch of shack have popped up along the tracks, selling food, supplies, whatever you might need for the next 2.5 hours of hiking. And then off along then tracks we went.
This was a very nice hike. Very flat. Along the river at the bottom of the valley. And it was kind of rainforest-y, which we hadn’t seen much of in Peru. Very scenic. There were lots of other hikers, so you didn’t feel lost. Very peaceful. A couple of little dark mountain tunnels to walk through. Yelling shit at the train when it went by. A good old time. Did I mention how flat it was? Super flat.
Aguas Calientes is a another little town that exists for the sole purpose of tourism, as it’s right below Machu Picchu. It’s really loud and a little obnoxious, but still charming. We got tickets (128 soles each! Pretty much the most expensive thing in Peru.) for Machu Picchu, and the guy at the ticket office talked us into paying extra to have access to Montaña Machu Picchu, which sits above the ruins. We got a room from a guy who was originally trying to show us his restaurant’s menu, but then took us upstairs to a room above a massage parlor in the building next door. We are not sure how he even was affiliated with the hostel, if he even was. He also did not remember us once, even though we talked to him every time we passed. Which was like 10 times a day. He also had a tiny, tiny monkey that hid just inside his collar all the time.
Being the balling budget travelers we are, we decided to hike up to Machu Picchu at 5am to catch the sunrise. We got up at 4, hiked down to the entrance to wait with all the other people had our same great idea. They finally opened the gates at 5:15, and off we went.
At first, I was really excited about hiking up and catching the sunrise. I was trying to hurry Natalie along, almost trying to race the people to the top. That excitement lasted about 10 minutes. There’s a lot of steps. It’s steep. The steps aren’t even proper steps, just kinda like random rock placed in a step-like fashion. The worst are the big steps. Pulling up those steps that are almost knee high really eat you up. They should make all steps in the world like 2 inches high. I could walk up that shit all day long. And then those asshole buses full of asshole people who didn’t feel like hiking before it even got light out began going by. I wanted to throw things at them and lie in the road to block them, but had to settle for cursing under my breath.
Took a little over an hour to get to the top. Thank goodness it was drizzling and cloudy, so none of the bitches that bussed or hiked up faster than we did got to see sunrise. If we didn’t get to see it, no one should. I might still be a little bitter about the walk up. We got in line and herded in with the rest of the tourists.
The ruins of Machu Picchu are pretty spectacular. It’s kinda crazy that they built this town out of rocks hundreds of years ago, and a good amount is still here. It’s even crazier that they built it on top of a mountain. And I’m bitching about just hiking a little bit. While we are not into super touristy things, this is was most touristy thing ever, and we still loved it. We did a nice slow lap around the main ruins. There’s different temple areas, terraces for farms, altars, houses, and sacred rocks up there, along with a handful of token llamas.
So we pretty much just hiked up 1000ft to get to Machu Picchu. There’s a couple of options to add as well. Huayna Picchu on one side. It’s some more ruins built into the mountain. Looked kinda cool. We decided to go with the Machu Picchu mountain option. The guy in the office said it was a nice view after a bit of hiking. We were sold, and bought extra little passage for 14 more soles. So we paid more money to go on an extra spirit crushing hike. This took over 2 hours. Another 2000 feet in elevation. Natalie did much better than I did. By the end, I was literally crawling up 4-5 steps at a time before stopping to rest. Natalie could do a whole flight at time, and then wait for me to drag myself up. It just would not end. Aggravating factors include the hike up just a short time before, the 4 hours of sleep the night before, all we had to eat was a couple of random Clif bars some random German girls gifted us a few weeks back, and we still hate hiking. It is the worst case of spaghetti legs I hope I will ever experience. I can’t even imagine how the dude that to build the steps felt about it. People were walking back down, giving encouragement, giving ETAs to the top. Everyone would give a totally different estimate every time. It would go from 10 minutes to 30 back 15, and so on. Didn’t know what to think, other than these people did not factor time spent lying down trying not to die into their estimates.
Totally worth the effort. At the top, there’s a view point. You can see the ruins, now a couple thousand feet down. You can see the train at the very bottom of the valley, now the size of a tiny bug. The view of the valley and other mountains was spectacular. It’s hard to describe with words, and pictures just don’t do it. The sun came out, amd it was pretty much perfect outside. You just have to do it yourself. At the top, everyone was super friendly, probably because we all had the same shared experience of paying extra money to do extra hiking. Everyone was taking picture of each others, laughing, talking. Some people ate lunch, took naps. We did all that work to get up there, so we were gonna hang out for a while. We saw a guy we had met a few weeks earlier in a tiny lodge in the Colca Canyon. He happened hike up the same time we did. We’re “the Americans.” He’s the Tunisian dude. Talked a couple other people. There was one lady helping people get pictures, so in return they took pictures for her. And since she pretty much helped everyone, she probably has a couple hundred of the same picture of herself up there.
The hike down was much better than walking up, as it usually is. Still not great on the knees. So we splurged and took the bus down. It was glorious and air conditioned. So should have taken it up begin with.
Hung out in Aguas Calientes to rest for another night before heading out. The thermal baths there are gross. There were several pools and they were all overcrowded. The water was kinda brownish. It didn’t smell good. But we got in anyways, since we paid and all. And got out like 4 minutes later and left. Just before a group of 50 screaming children showed up. We had to take showers after the thermal bath to feel clean again. Get some shitty pizza and 4 for 1 deal on pina coladas at one of the many indistinguishable restaurants. We told the guy that got us the room that we were staying another night, but he just looked confused and tried to get us to look at the same menu we refused to look at least eleventeen times already. We did pay some lady the morning, but it wasn’t the same amount or the same person. The hike back to Hidroelectrica was just as nice as the first time around. We were the only ones hiking on that direction. There was some sort race going the other way. I was personally enjoying walking on flat land.
Best Name Ever For A Travel Blog 