On the 23th of August I wanted to walk from Ollantaytambo (in fact from the 82km mark) to Aguas Caliente, but I ended up taking the train. Not being sure of where to go the night before I decided to take the train for 51$ (American). I got up at 3am to be ready to leave my hospedaje at 4am. The ticket office for the train opened at 4, so I wanted to be there as early has possible to be sure to have a ticket. Bought my ticket and got to the train station and waited until 5:15 am to get on the train. I could have been there a bit later because that early train was almost empty, and mostly only had locals in. I guess I'm the only traveler that wanted to be in Aguas Caliente early.
Aguas Caliente
The train ride took around an hour and a half and was quite nice. Got to Aguas Caliente around 7am. I walked into town a bit looking for a cheap room, but nothing is cheap in this small town, due to the overflowing tourists willing to pay anything to see Machu Pichu. You have to expect everything to be double the price of anywhere else in Peru. I finally found a small room in ''Hospedaje Antarky'', he asked for 25 soles and was able to have the room for 20 soles after negociating. There is a downfall, when I asked if I could use the internet he said it would be 5 soles :), so I declined not really needing it. I left my backpack there and started looking for tickets to Machu Pichu and found the office very quickly for the town is not too big. Got my ticket for 128 soles and headed strait for the road that led to the stairs to go up. It's maybe a 2-3 km walk to get to the checkpoint right before the bridge, where a man indicated to me how to get to the footpath to go up.
The bridge au the foot of the mountain
Going up by foot was a challenge that I did not want to miss and I actually did not think that the challenge would be so hard, was I ever wrong. The first little part of the path only had a few stairs and was a sandy and rocky path, but after it started being stairs only. I have read somewhere that there are over 1500 stairs all made of rocks but I am doubtful, I must say that when I got to the top it did feel like that. These stairs are not the typical small stairs that we have in our homes either, they are steep in some places and much higher in most places, meaning you have to raise your legs much more than with usual stairs. I did it in 45-50 minutes and passed many other hikers on the way. When I got to the top I was breathless and really needed a break. How much time did it take you to go up? This climbing was not over yet, I was only at the main gate to go on site.
And I thought I was almost there
The path on the way up
My first real view on the site
It was around 9:30am by then and the site was already filled with people. I had often heard that before 10-11 am it was not so bad. But there are now groups and tours going up starting at 6am, so there were indded a lot of people already, it did get to have much more around 11am. Doing abstraction of all the people, the site is wonderful. When I first set eyes on the whole place once you have gone up more stairs I was without words to describe the feeling. Again looking at pictures will never give you the feeling of actually be there. I did not want to go on the main grounds right away, a few paths let to other places in higher grounds and wanted to do these before going back down. I would have maybe not wanted to climb higher later in the day.
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''Aguas Caliente & Machu Pichu''
I met someone that I had talked with at the hostel in Cusco and we hiked the trail that goes to the Inca bridge that was an easy trail.We then walked up the Machu Pichu mountain to get to the sun gate. More stairs and it was a bit of a harder hike, but still pretty easy to do. The view on Machu Pichu is from the same height than being on Wayna Pichu but from much farther. It was a very nice spot also and am glad that I did go to see it. After me and my friend from the hostel split up and I went back down to go around the main grounds where all the house and temples are.
The path to the Inca Bridge
Inca Bridge
View from the Sun Gate
Sun Gate
Now, is that not wonderful?
To walk around all these walls and houses was great and really gives you a sense of how big this place is. I went in about all the spot where I could go and sometimes would stick close to tour groups and listened a little while to what their guides was explaining about some spots that seemed to need some explanations.
At around 2:30 - 3:00 pm I had been mostly all around the site and decided that I would soon take the stairs back down but I had no more water and needed some for the walk down. I should have brought a little extra because the prices at the main gates was ridiculous, 8 soles for a small bottle. I needed one, so I paid the price but was not happy at myself, I should have had more.
After talking a fifteen minute break at the top of the stairs I started my walk down. It was much easier than going up, but still a bit hard on the legs because of how big the steps are. I took my time and made it down in about 30 minutes. Once I got to Aguas Caliente I went strait to my hospedaje to have a shower because I had been sweating like crazy on my way up and I smelled like sweat a lot. I had not thought of asking if there was hot water when I checked in to the hospedaje I soon realized that I would have to go for a very cold shower.
Urubamba River
Camping group at the foot of Machu Pichu
Aguas Caliente at night
I went for supper soon after because I was starving since I had not brought much to eat with me on the mountain since the guides were saying that eating was not allowed on the site, but many had their lunch and it did not seem such a big deal. The backpack are not searched when going on site so you can bring food, just don't litter and bring back your stuff in your backpacks. After supper I met up again with Dimitri that I had met earlier and a friend of is. They also wanted to go for supper, so I went along and had a beer while talking with them at the table. It was a nice time and after we walked around a bit in the street looking at small souvenir shops. Later we split up again and I went back to my room. Went to bed not too late for I did want to walk along the train tracks in the morning to go back to Ollantaytambo.
Video of Machu Pichu
In the morning of the 24th, I woke up realizing I had slept in. I wanted to leave at 6am and it was now 8. I took a walk to the train station to see if I could have a ticket for the early trains. No chance there, the only one available was for 4pm. I wondered if I stayed in Aguas Caliente for another night. I would have ended spending another 25-30$ in the day for lunches and another night at the hostel, so I opted to take the train again for 55$ this time. I had a late breakfast in a small restaurant for 15 soles, and then roamed around town for the afternoon waiting for my train. On the way back I could see that many places had paths where I could have easily walked and some other places where I would have had to walk on the train tracks. Someone could also camp on the way if they would not want to walk the whole 28km in one day. Many places along the tracks could be used for camping without being on someones private property. I regret not having brought my camping gear, since it could have been done. If I would have only known and this is why I am sharing this info so that others may be able to do so.
I got back in Ollantaytambo at 6pm and took a collectivo that went to Urubamba for 1.50 soles and had to take another collectivo from Urubamba to Cusco for 4 soles. I got back in Cusco at 9pm, made myself supper in the Hostel kitchen since I had only eaten granola bars all day other than my breakfast and when to bed soon after.
It was an awesome experience to go and see Machu Pichu and Aguas Caliente that is a nice little town also worth seeing.
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