Tim & Denise Tiner Travels: 2021 October - Day 06 - Peru

Our day today began a bit earlier than days past. As a matter of fact the next couple of days will be early mornings. We got up around 6 AM although I had a bad sleeping night waking up at 1:45 AM, reading the Deseret News awhile then dozing off until 4 AM when the folks upstairs decided to have a futbol game making a bunch of noise walking around. They must have had somewhere to be quite early. Anyway, that kept me awake for a while and then I dozed off until 5:45 AM when I decided to get up and get a shower…hopefully a hot one. It was pretty warm…no complaints.

We met our Taxi driver at 7 AM on the street that runs near our BNB. The traffic getting out of Cusco was pretty bad, even at that time in the morning. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the Poroy Train Station. There we had to dawn our masks and face shields to get into the train station. But funny, once we were in the station, most just had masks on.

At about 8 AM, we were able to board our coche (train car). It was pretty much us and 3 other people in this car. After getting sitting down, we pulled out all the food that we had brought for the trip since it was going to be a 4 hour trip. Someone then said that the sign said no food or drink allowed on the train! Whoops. The guy and gal assigned to our coche smiled at us and said…ok…you can eat for the next two hours until we get to the next station where the train was to stop. They were so kind to allow us to do that.

The train trip was slow and absolutely amazingly beautiful. We winded through the most amazing mountains, farm lands, jungle like areas and so on. The first half of the trip to Ollantaytambo was going through farm lands with little pueblos dotting the trip. But there were little homes along the way the entire trip. After stopping at Ollantaytambo for about 20 minutes, we headed to Machu Picchu Pueblo. From Cusco, you can drive a car to Ollantaytambo. But from Ollantaytambo, the only way to get to Mach Piccu Pueblo was by train. And after Ollantaytambo, the landscape changed. It turned from farm land to more jungle like landscape. The train followed a river all the way to MP Pueblo. It was quite large until we came to a dam in the river where they generated 35% of the COUNTRIES power. It wasn’t that big. But that is what they said. I was amazed by that. There were little home sites along the river and I wondered how they got the materials (cement, tin roofing, etc.) to these sites. It turns out that the locals have benefits with the trains that go through here and they will stop along the way for them and offload materials they had purchased.

In some places along the way the mountains were so high that they were in the clouds and they were covered with snow….which is hard to do so close to the equator. Anyway, it was a great 4 hours. We arrived at MP Pueblo around noon. The host of our BNB was there to meet us and take us to his BNB. So he grabbed our bags and took us winding through buildings up stairs. Everything here is on a hill. Our rooms are on the 4th floor with two more floors above us. Being so high in altitude, you start sucking wind pretty quick. Anyway, after dropping our bags, we asked him to take us to the office where we could buy our bus tickets that will take us to Machu Picchu tomorrow. After getting the tickets, our host took us to an amazing restaurant that sat looking over the river. It had live music along with some great menu options. I actually chose a burger made of Alpaca meat. It was really quite good. The meat had the texture of steak. Anyway, the place was really good. After eating, we returned slowly to the BNB where took an hour or so to rest and unpack. Oh, in Cusco, we left half our gear as we could only have one piece of luggage per person. And we decided to bring our dirty clothes here to have them washed, which they do all over the place. So for $5, our host had all our dirty laundry washed and it was ready when we returned from our evening activities.

After our rest, we wanted to get a treat. We found a place that had Ice Cream and Crepes. We waited a bit to get a table. The service in some Peru places is amazing slow. And this place won the award so far. These two girls took at least 45 minutes to make 3 crepes, scoop two scoops of ice cream, bring two pieces of cake, and make 3 hot chocolates. And that was just Denise’s order1. Just kidding Denise! The each item came out individually. At one point, Heidi told Marc to go get her crepe since it had sat on the serving area for a good 5 minutes for no reason. So sad that they don’t get that.

Well, tomorrow we head up to Machu Picchu. This is the main reason for our trip. It is one of the new 7 wonders of the world. We are all really excited. So more to come tomorrow!

Pictures:

Us enjoying the very slow train ride, but very beautiful, to Machu Picchu Pueblo.

The Poroy Train terminal in Cusco. About 45 minute drive from downtown Cusco.

In line waiting to board our train, 6 feet separated, with face masks and face shields and we are all vaccinated. Amazing! I think I feel safe.

The Vistadome Train car that we had. It was very nice for viewing all aspects of the ride.

Again, us with our face shields on in the Poroy Train station. A star wars group!

I think you can see how they layer the landscape for agriculture and such.

In Machu Picchu Pueblo there is a bridge where the river flows from the springs down into the much bigger river that has locks on it. Denise says we are doing that this Wednesday before we leave in recognition of our 40th anniversary that day

They have lots of symbols in the sidewalks here in MP Pueblo. This obviously represents the sun.

You can see some of the buildings that we passed on our way to the train station. These are probably the middle class here in Cusco.

Our BNB is quite high and this picture shows us looking down on buildings below us and then up the canyon here.

Marc bought a strawberry cheesecake that came in the shape of a heart. We had to get a picture of that!

Us about to enjoy a late lunch, early dinner. Our host took us directly to this restaurant. We did not ask him to do that. We did tell him that we were hungry. So he acted on it and took us here. It was a really nice, and busy, eatery.

I believe these are chickens for sale…and nothing goes wasted.

They have this stone art everywhere. I’m not sure what this represents, but you see these type of carvings all over the place in MP Pueblo.

We all ate Alpaca burgers. Like I said, they were really good tasting meat. Hard to think about after you’ve seen their cute faces.

Michelle talking to Scott. The question is…is he listening!?!

These are the stairs that have to climb to get to the front door of the Picos House where we are staying.

This is the creek that starts above from a natural hot spring that then flows down to the river. You can bath in the hot spring which we might do after Machu Picchu visit .

It rained quite hard in the afternoon today. So umbrellas were up and being used.

More of the terrracing that goes on here in these valleys along the river.

Sadly, in Cusco you can see displays of trash. This was a nasty one that we passed on our way to the Poroy train station where the dogs were having breakfast.