Sept 19 - Sept 21
Elevation 9160 ft

machu picchu Pueblo to ollantaytambo

Train - Machu Picchu Pueblo to Ollantaytambo
Taxi to Hotel

Things to See and do:

Pisac

Hotel - The Green House B&B

Sunday, September 19

So we get on the train at Machu Picchu for our trip to Ollantaytambo to see some of the Sacred Valley. There are several sets of Incan ruins in a couple of different locations and maybe some more things to see.

We get on the train, and airplane seat snob Doug feels vindicated from the sucky seats we had on the way to Machu Picchu. We’re on a single car combo train/engine and we have the front row seats. We have a nice big window in front of us and we’ll be able to see all of the scenery on the way.

There’s always some bad that goes along with some good. We have a great view, and the problem is that we have a great view. There are maybe some things that are better left unseen (kinda like do you really want to know what happens behind the kitchen doors of your favorite restaurant?). The train system is not automated. That means that periodically we have to stop so one of the train’s crew can jump down and move the track switch to the correct position. There is just a single train track, but there are places where one train can pull off to the side just slightly so another train can pass. The management of the track is done manually and so we get to see the crew in action. We also get to see just how precarious some of the rocks on some of the cliffs are. We showed you around Machu Picchu that landslides happen on occasion and can involve some seriously really big rocks. Well, the same thing can happen along the train track. We calculated that we averaged around 12 mph for the trip and Travis speculates that’s so the train driver can stop in time in the event we encounter a section of the track that has received a recent landslide.

We can also see all of the sections of track that had to be replaced because of the recent floods from this past February. There are a lot of replaced sections.

But seeing all that is quite interesting and it does make for some pretty good pictures.

We arrive at Ollantaytambo which is a lot calmer than on the trip there. We’re supposed to meet a driver that’s taking us to our hotel, but there’s no sign of him. We wait a few minutes and then start calling the hotel. We sure are glad that we bought that SIM card!

He’s running late (huge shock) but eventually arrives. We arrive at our hotel, which is a small 4-room B&B that we found on TripAdvisor that got fantastic reviews. It’s called The Green House. It’s on a very rocky side road from the main highway. We have no idea how people normally traverse up here. The place is pretty cool and the people that run it are pretty cool too. We run into one of our first travel issues with the taxi driver not having any change for the taxi fare. The owner of the B&B is able to make some change for us.

The bags that we sent from Cusco are here! The B&B owner said “you must have stayed in a really good hotel in Cusco because they sent the bags along with someone to carry them ON A BUS to get them here.” No wonder why they look so dirty now! We get a tour of the property and receive various instructions and helpful hints. We discover that the “Internet Access” that was advertised on their website is really a laptop computer tethered to a data cellphone that is provided to us during the hours of 5 pm – 7 pm. Well, we’re certainly not going to be updating any websites from here! Oh well. We suppose that our fans can wait another day or two for additional updates.

It’s suggested that we use up the rest of our daylight by taking a short (1 hour there plus 1 hour return) walk to see a waterfall. We’ve been cooped up all day in a train and taxi, so we’re interested. We get a very detailed map and start on our way.

This vacation is turning into one of different extremes. We are out in the boonies! It’s all farmland and cows and dirt/rocky roads. We come across one section of farmland that the locals have turned one corner into a soccer field. There are a few kids out playing soccer. There are also irrigation canals all over the place. We walk about 30 minutes and then have problems with the map and we end up at someone’s house and try to find our path. We think we’re officially lost and the terrain is quite rocky and Travis hates walking on rocks! The homeowners obviously aren’t around because we haven’t seen anyone, but we have encountered their dogs which are very friendly.

We start to leave and one of the owners drives up. We tell her we’re looking for the waterfall and she says that people end up at her house all of the time and she points us in the correct direction (a big pile of dirt was hiding the path and we ended up walking right by it). We finally get to a viewing location of the waterfall. It’s not huge, but it at least gave us something to do and one of the dogs from the house that we got lost at decided to follow along with us.

It’s going to be getting dark soon, so we take a few pictures and start heading back. We pass by a local Andean woman who is carrying a load of something on her back, and is nursing a baby in front. She’s having a lot easier time navigating on the rocky terrain than we are and we feel a little unimpressed with ourselves.

We pass by the soccer field and there are even more people there now. The dog is still following along with us.

We find our way back to The Green House and get a recommendation for dinner from one of the owners. We’re going to a steakhouse in nearby Urubamba.

We take a taxi to the restaurant. We sure are glad that he knows where it is because we never would have found it. It resembles an abandoned building much more than it does a nice restaurant. Once again, the driver doesn’t have any change for the taxi fare and Doug goes into the restaurant to get some change. They don’t have any change either, but the waitress digs out enough money for the fare and gives it to the driver. She’s just going to add it to our bill.

We both have fantastic steaks! They supposedly get their meat from Argentina and it’s very good. We have the restaurant call a cab for us and we suspect again that we’re going to have change issues so we have the waitress add the return trip to our bill and we pay the whole thing with a credit card. Problem solved. We’re slightly perplexed on the whole change thing. The largest Peruvian note is S100 (100 Soles) which is the equivalent to about $33 USD. We’re not talking huge chunks of money here and we were actually trying to pay for our S15 cab fare with a S50 note. We don’t see any banks around and we wonder exactly how people pay for things if they never have any change. Just odd.

We get in the cab and he asks our destination. Trying to be good tourists, we answer him in Spanish and tell him “Casa Verde” (Green House). He sounds confused and calls his dispatcher for where in the world Casa Verde would be. We overhear enough of the dispatcher who tells him in English that it’s “The Green House.” He knows exactly where that is!

Monday, September 20

We get up and have breakfast there at The Green House. We decide that we’re going to go to the ruins of Pisac today and start planning it out. Half way through breakfast one of the owners comes up to us to inform us that there is a potential transportation strike starting tomorrow and lasting two days. There is limited information, but there should be more shortly – they have someone going into town for some shopping who can find out the real story.

You saw the protest in Cusco over water and apparently this one is related. The farmers have been protesting the government selling water to other regions and they feel that they’re not left with enough. When the quality and the quantity of water that you have is not adequate, it is a big deal! We’re finding that out more and more as we keep having to fill up water bottles, since nowhere in all of Peru can we drink the tap water!!!

Anyway, the rumor is that all of the transportation workers in the region will be going on strike in support of the farmers. In the past, they actually would block some of the roads and nothing moves. No going anywhere. The owner actually told us of a story of a previous one where he decided to ignore the ban and to go into town only to have rocks thrown at his car. He eventually turned around and went home and forgot about the trip.

We’re really don’t like the sound of this and start thinking things through. We’re not all that worried about getting stuck somewhere, but the lack of internet here is sort of an issue and the potential strike might mess up our plans to eventually go to Nasca (which we’ve already pre-paid some of that leg). We don’t really have a lot of restaurant options either. We would likely be eating there at The Green House for the whole period. If we’re going to be stuck somewhere we would at least like some internet and the flexibility of walking to some different restaurants (not an option here).

We think that we might be better off forgetting about The Sacred Valley and ending up early in Lima. That would certainly give us the best position of still doing Nazca. Doug gets busy on the phone calling the Lima hotel and finds out that they have early availability and calls the airline to see if they have seats available on any of the flights leaving this afternoon. It looks like everything can work out if needed.

We finally receive work back from town that the strike is going to happen and it’s going to be a serious one. It will basically be a total lockdown of the transportation in the region starting tonight and lasting 48 hours. Yuck!

We set our new plan in motion and Doug makes the calls to change the Lima hotel arrival date to today and gets the flight changed to this afternoon. We get the B&B staff interested in getting the laundry that they serviced for us done and folded. We get that, pack up quickly and get a taxi back to Cusco. We have a 3:30 flight that leaves Cusco heading to Lima. We leave the B&B at about 1:15 which should be plenty of time. We’re told that the drive back into Cusco is about an hour.

We haven’t had lunch yet and we’re starving and Travis is starting to get grumpy. We asked the B&B to ask the driver to stop in Urubamba quickly on the way for a sandwich to go. He agrees. We stop in Urubamba and he finds a restaurant and we order sandwiches for all of us (including our driver) and pick up some cokes. We eat our “mixto” chicken and cheese sandwiches on the drive. They’re really good!

We get our first taste of real driving in Peru. It’s somewhat chaotic. Our driver, who we’ll call “Speedy” since we never got his real name, is quite the driver. They apparently don’t have any driving rules. Speedy loves to drive in the middle of all of the two-lane roads and also likes to pass on corners and absolutely LOVES to honk his horn. Travis thinks that he would have made quite the race car driver. He is quite talented because he can eat his chicken sandwich and drive a standard transmission car and pass on corners and honk his horn without missing a beat.

The drive back is somewhat uninteresting (other than Speedy’s driving). We see a lot of terrain and everything is brown. Brown fields. Brown houses made of brown clay brick. Brown…brown…brown. We think it would look a lot like Tuscany if it was greener. We see a lot of cows and llamas and people out working their fields and school kids walking home along the side of the road (they almost always are in classy school uniforms).

The drive is taking a lot longer than we anticipated and we’re starting to get nervous about making our flight. We have to drive to the center of Cusco to reach the airport and it feels like it’s taking forever. There is at least one wreck, one overturned truck, and quite a lot of traffic.

We arrive at the airport with 35 minutes to spare and we’re still wondering if we’ll make our flight or not. There’s no one in line (all of the sane people checked in long ago!) and we just about walk right up to the counter. We’re mentally prepared to accept defeat and we’re completely surprised when the ticket agent accepts our bags and gives us boarding passes. We pay our airport tax and head to security and finally our gate. We definitely cut it close, but we still had a few extra minutes to spare.

Oh, the joys of international travel!

Stay tuned for future updates and what we end up doing in Lima with extra time on our hands.