The Sacred Valley encompasses a large geographical area and fun amount of different elevations. Here is a map from an expedition website that shows the whole valley.
It takes a while to get to Machu Picchu. We flew into Cusco (11,200 ft) rode in a packed van for about 2.5 hours through Chincheros (12,300 ft) and Urubamba (9,400 ft) then stopped in Ollantaytambo (9,100 ft). There we got on the train and arrived 2 hours later in Aguas Calientes (6,700 ft). This is basically the touristy town you have to stop in to get to the world wonder. From here we took a bus 25 minutes up the mountain to the final destination: Machu Picchu (7,900 ft).
When we arrived in Ollantaytambo, we had a few hours to kill before boarding the train so we rested in a cafe, explored a ruin site, bought some gifts for family and ate dinner at a fun restaurant called Hearts Cafe who donates all their profits to an education effort in Peru.
OLLANTAYTAMBO
These are the Terraces of Pumatallis. Like all Inca settlements, these are agricultural terraces designed so they could farm on an otherwise unsuitable area. This particular set of terraces is higher than most, which allowed the farmers to grow different crops at different altitudes. I’m not much of a gardener, but sure am curious what grows best at what altitude. Since Ollantaytambo is a mandatory stopping point on the way to Machu Picchu, and this is one of the most impressive ruin sites in the town, the place was crowded.
More earthquake-proof trapezoid shaped doorways. And never-ending terraces.
This is a tour guide for a different group. We didn’t get a guide here but enjoyed walking around and listening to everyone else’s guides. The fountain is called, “The bath of the Princess” and it rests at the bottom of the mountain among ruins that look like house frames.
This Peruvian man is the artist behind these incredible oil paintings done on velvet. We bought one as a gift for Lucas’ cousin Sarah, whose wedding we went to 3 days after we got home. The painting on the left is the famous view of Machu Picchu with an Inca person on the side. Also, if you tilt your head to the right you’ll see that the mountain range behind Machu Picchu outlines the profile of an Inca’s face. Cool, right? We thought so.
After dinner at The Hearts Cafe, we boarded the train and arrived in Aguas Calientes which is a tiny town at the base of the mountain that Machu Picchu is on. The town consists of several hostels and restaurants and a small train station. The only people there were tourists or employees of the housing and food places.
A small change of plans happened when we arrived. There was supposed to be someone from the hostel we had reservations with at the train station to meet us. We waited and found no one. So we walked to the hostel ourselves. Then the professor walked to the front desk to check us all in and the secretary told him we had no reservation there and they were completely booked for the night. So… here we are… 6 people… homeless. Turned out there was a scheduling/confirmation issue and we were on the books for a few nights later. The workers were very kind and ran around the town to find any hostels that had open rooms. The first available room found was at one of the nicer hostels. Meaning it was 4 times the price of the place we had planned to stay in. I had been sick all day so the Professor told Lucas and I to take the nice room and he would pay for it. Thank you!! I’m convinced that the quality of the rooms (regardless of price) were fairly similar, but a plus for us was that our hostel provided a good breakfast at 4:30 am. The 6 of us split up into 3 different hostels, each of which gave us their last available room. Lucky day!
Now, to the great world wonder!