Machu Picchu – a dream come true

It is earlier than expected that we went to the Machu Picchu and from Cusco directly. Initially, we thought we could buy our entry tickets to the Machu Picchu directly there, but after talking to the French couple we met here, it seems that we have no choice but to purchase the tickets in Cusco and at least 2 days before the desired date. Indeed, they only sell 2,500 tickets every morning and 2,500 every afternoon. We went to the ticket office on a Wednesday morning and there was nothing available before Friday afternoon. At first we wanted to buy tickets for the morning session, but after reading a few blogs online we saw that there are actually fewer people in the afternoon since most travel agencies book the morning session. Also in the morning the bridge to take the road up to the Machu Picchu opens at 5 am for the pedestrians and 5:30 am for the buses. A lot of people start lining up at 4:30am to be able to be the first at the top and take THE most wanted picture with nobody on the site. Also most people do the morning session so they can drive back to Cusco the same afternoon, indeed the hostels and hotels in Aguas Calientes (the town at the bottom of the Machu Picchu) are crazy expensive and people try to only spend a single night instead of two. Since we want to avoid waking up at 3 am and prefer having less people on site, we bought the Friday afternoon ticket.

To get to Aguas Calientes, the village at the bottom of the Machu Picchu, is no simple task when on a budget. First thing to know is that there is no road going to Aguas Calientes.

To get there from Cusco there are two options :

1. By train, from Cusco it’s only 4 hours but it costs around $100 per person…
2. Drive to Hydroelectrica (6 hours direct from Cusco in a minibus, or 9 hours by using local transportation and having to change buses twice and finally grabbing a cab). The name says it all, Hydroelectrica is no city, it’s simply a hydroelectric facility from which you can either take a train to Aguas Calientes (very expensive again) or walk along the train tracks for 2h30 (you can easily imagine which solution we chose…)

The minibuses that go from Cusco to Hydroelectrica directly, are generally property of travel agencies. Again, after reading different blogs we saw that it was possible to negotiate to only take the bus through an agency, without having to book the entire package (bus + hotel + meals).

There we go around the city of Cusco to talk to different agencies and compare their prices (there is literally a travel agency every couple of feet in the city center). Negotiating is a lot easier when done in Spanish so Maider took the lead! We found an agency that we liked, and double checked with the local tourism office to make sure it is certified (indeed there are a lot of agencies in Cusco but only a handful are properly certified). Everything seems OK so we booked our round trip Cusco – Hydroelectrica for the next day. It appears Maider did an amazing job since we will be paying even less than if we used the local transportation! Nice negotiating skills right there.

We left Cusco at 7:40 am (departure was initially supposed to be 7am, but as usual Peruvians are late...) in a minibus with other people who, like us, booked only the transportation and others who had the travel agency take care of everything. Two stops total until we get to Hydroelectrica, first for breakfast and then for lunch. After the first stop our driver tells us that starting now the road will be very dangerous and if we feel sick we need to tell him well in advance so he can stop. Before leaving, he kisses is little statues of Jesus, does a little prayer and off we go. Not sure if we should feel confident or proactively shit our pants.

The first part of the ride is pretty smooth, the road is spotless, certainly the best mountains road we have seen in Peru so far. And icing on the cake, as we climb the mountains the view is incredible.

Not sure why the driver tried to scare us like that… until we reached the second part of the trip.

The road becomes a tiny dirt road, we come across other cars where we could swear only one car should be able to drive on that road. We have the ravine on one side and the cliff on the other, there is no room for a mistake here. If you are afraid of heights or don’t trust your driver, this is not a ride for you. 

We try to concentrate on the beautiful landscape and arrive without an issue (granted we did close our eyes a few times…).

It’s around 2:30 pm that we get to Hydroelectrica, and this is where mass tourism begins! Over 20 other minibuses are already parked along the road to drop off passengers… some are walking along the rails, others waiting to take the train that is supposed to depart a couple hours later. We aren’t even at the Machu Picchu yet but there are already a lot of people!

We started walking with two other French couples met on the bus ride. One is also doing a trip around the world, and the other traveling around South America. There we go, we started the 2h30 hour hike along the tracks.

It’s hot and humid, and we have to stay in line in some areas but what wouldn’t we do to save a little extra bucks!!

The trail really isn’t complicated, all you need to do is follow the tracks they said… well, us 6 manage to get lost in the middle of the jungle after only 10 minutes. We go back where we came from and it looks like we were too busy chit chatting and missed the sign to the Machu Picchu, we were apparently following the wrong tracks.

And of course getting lost only once isn’t fun, so we also missed the entrance to our camping before getting to Aguas Calientes. Indeed we decided to camp instead of booking a hostel since hostels in Aguas Calientes are pretty expensive and because we didn’t do the Choquequirao trek we thought we could camp a couple of nights. Also, the camping is far from Aguas Calientes, where everybody stays, so at least at night we will be far from the crowds and finally it is just yards away from the park entrance, so this perfectly fits our needs.

And we didn’t mention that we can see some of the Machu Picchu ruins from our camping!

Once the enthusiasm of getting to our camping spot softened a little, it was Maider’s turn to get sick. Looks like she got the stomach flu as well and threw up just outside our tent. Not super fun when knowing that we were about to spend 2 nights camping and that the next day we needed to hike up 1,312 ft to get to the Machu Picchu. After an awful night for Maider, we were glad we had tickets for the afternoon session and not the morning one. Maider would have never been able to get up and started hiking at 5am. No choice but after such a night, Maider had to eat the oatmeal we brought for breakfast, she will never be able to hike up on an emptying stomach.

Luckily the mixture tastes better than last time after we added some chocolate and coconut powder. Way better!

It is around 11am when we start hiking up. There again we have the ability to take the bus up instead of hiking but the price is really high and come on we have hiked way harder! Still both a little sick we start to hike up, and the trail is not easy. It is made almost exclusively of uneven steps (1,800 in total). We cross paths with a lot of people hiking down and we make it up in approximately 50 minutes.

And once again we are shocked by the line at the top to get inside the site. We wonder how there could possibly be more people in the morning…

In front of the entrance a ton of guides are there to propose tours, we read that it was better to take a guide since there are absolutely no explanations on site. But we also see that most groups with the guides are huge… we finally decide to take a guide that seems pretty friendly and luckily for us, he can’t find anymore people to join our group so we will only be 3 in total, us two and a German girl!

The guide tells us that there is definitely less people than in the morning and because we are such a small group he is able to take us along smaller trails to avoid the big groups! Awesome!

The guide starts by bringing us all the way at the top of the site where we can take THE famous Machu Picchu pictures.

Without proof how will people believe that we went there 😉 ?

And nice surprise, on top of being a professional guide, he is great at taking pictures! We are sure he is used to being asked all day long…

During 2 hours the guide explains how the site was built, how many people lived here and how they lived. Super interesting. We are glad we took a guide, without him we would have missed so much information!

The place is so beautiful we almost forget how many people are around us.

Once again, we are absolutely stunned by how ingenious the Inca’s were for their time.

We feel very lucky to be able to walk around the Machu Picchu especially as the guide explains that the government just passed a bill to completely close the Machu Picchu and build an overlooking platform for tourists to take pictures. Sadly this is the only way to preserve the site, indeed with all the people visiting the site, like we did, the mountain that the Machu Picchu stands on is slowly sinking. This always makes you think about mass tourism... indeed on one hand the more people visit the more money goes to the Peruvian government and the Peruvian people, but on the other hand the more people visit the more we are destroying this magnificent site.

After the tour, we find a quite spot (yes there are some quite spots far from the crowd) to get a little rest and admire one last time the scenery. The site is now a lot less crowded, indeed all of the people of the morning are gone and most of the groups in the afternoon are done as well. This gives the site even more charm!

It’s absolutely thrilled to have seen one of the 7 New Wonders of the world, that we head back down to our camping, without forgetting to stamp our passports!

On the way back we stopped to buy chips and a Coke for Maider (and a fresh beer for Matt). After this improvised snacking, Maider feels a lot better and we spend an enjoyable last night at our camping.

After a great night (finally nobody was sick) we ate our oatmeal, packed everything and headed back along the tracks around noon. We walked the 2h30 back to Hydroelectrica where our bus was picking us up.

The arrival at Hydroelectrica is hectic to say the least. There are people everywhere since all the bus companies leave at about the same time. The different drivers simply shout out the name of the travel agency or the name of the people missing in their buses… it’s a huge mess. We really wonder why they never optimized their system a tiny bit over the years. A simple sign with the name of the travel agency for example would be so much simpler… We guess this is the Peruvian way!

So a lot of buses have already departed but we still have no idea where ours is. We meet up with some French and Canadian people who are taking the same bus we are, and we already wonder how we are all going to fit in the bus… and well, we will most definitely not all fit in. Indeed, our bus arrives with people already inside and only half of us have a seat… the agency over-booked! But as with everything in Peru, there is always a solution. Or as they love to say here “no te preocupa amigo” (don’t worry my friend). After waiting for over 30 minutes the driver finally finds two other buses to put the remaining people in and off we go! We finally leave Hydroelectrica over an hour late. And then starts the long 6 hour ride back to Cusco. We are so high from what we just experienced that Maider is barely worried when she sees the driver call his mother to book a doctor’s appointment while changing the radio station and of course driving on these dangerous dirt roads.

Short night in Cusco since the next day we went to the Plaza de Armas at 8:30 am to watch the world cup final France vs Croatia with our French friends met at the Machu Picchu.

And as you can see in the videos, there was an incredible atmosphere. So glad to be able to see France win the world cup 20 years after the last one! All whilst in Peru and traveling the world. We will never forget this incredible weekend!