La Rue Vibre !

If you go to Peru you cannot avoid the visit to one of the 7 world’s marvels : Machu Pichu ! However it is a very expensive visit. The nearest town to the site is called Aguas Calientes and is only accessible by train and those tickets are incredibly expensive for tourists. Hopefully, as explained this article, there is an alternative way to get there. And we had some surprises with this track!

We got up at 5.30 a.m. in Cuzco to get the first bus for Santa Maria. We arrived 20 minutes before and it was already full. Thus we waited the bus of 8 am.
Only after one hour and half of travel, the bus stopped. We thought the tire punctured but in fact the axle was broken. There were nothing to do than waiting 2 hours for another bus. The bus which picked up was really time-worn. I could even see the ground under my feet!

After 2-3 hours the bus stopped once again. Then we learned the road was closed for roadwork and we had to wait 2 hours more. Hopefully we could spend this time watching a football game between Argentinean tourists and local people (wearing boots!).

Finally the bus left again and one hour later we arrived in Santa Maria. It was about 7.30 pm, it was dark and we were not at the end of the trip. We shared a taxi with two Argentinean couples to go to the “Hydroelectrica”, the place from where starts the railway to Aguas Calientes. Thus Remi was in the boot and we were 4 on the back seat!

The track was really bad, winding and on the hillside (see the above video filmed on the way back). And 500 meters down there was the river. The driver was going very fast, giving as pretext it is better to drive by night!

Other taxis full of Argentinean were following us. There were going at the same destination. After only 30 minutes everybody stopped and got off the cars: rockfalls were blocking the road! After 1 hour we left again. The driver told us to close our doors very well because a rock could fall at any time. We had the impression to be in a rallye but it was real life.

Hopefully we avoided the rockfall and arrived at 10 pm. Now it is easy, only 2 hours and half walking along the railway! We were a group of about 30 : 28 Argentinean and 2 French.

We walked in the dark, crossed bridges (walking on the sleepers) and finally arrived in Aguas Calientes at about midnight and half. Of course it was not easy to find accommodation at this time in the most expensive city of the country…

Machu Pichu is at about 20 minutes of bus from town. It enables to get up 500 meters up to the citadel. But the bus is very expensive, thus we decided to get there by foot. During one hour we got up the stairs… very tiring! But Machu Pichu is something that needs to be earned!

Here we are!!! The site is huge and in very good conservation state. We could walk around during hours, admiring well-adjusted walls of rocks, wonderful terraces or even still working fountains. Many workers are maintaining the site, scraping lichens between rocks.

However the citadel suffers from the tourist crowds (more than 3000 visits each day!) and thus the mountains would subside of 1cm each month. You should go there very quickly before the access is restricted!
After visiting the citadel we went no the Inca trail, the same track we covered in Equator (see this article). After 30 minutes of walk we reached the Sun door, a guardhouse from which they could watch all the valley. From there the view is wonderful!

After one day of walk nothing is better than a warm bath in the thermal baths of the town. We are in Aguas Calientes after all (signifies “warm water” in Spanish). The warmest bath was at 40 degrees, very relaxing.

The day after we got on the way back, without any trouble. IN the day the track is beautiful. The river is roaring, the birds are singing and we were happy to have seen the most beautiful Inca site of the country!