My own Inka trail, part I
Perú! Land of the Inkas and the guinea pig 🙂 Many many people come to this country with one goal: Machu Picchu. What many don´t know is how extremely expensive it is. For me it was like armed robbery! That´s why, asking around and armed with lots of time, courage and patience, I started what I call the modern Inka trail or the Cholo trail ;). Do you really think an Inka would pay US$ 350?? I doubt it!
I´ll be giving prices, although I don´t really like it, for people planing this trip. My apologies.
People of the world read carefully and you´ll have a real adventure and you´ll end up spending US$ 35 instead of millions! As I said you´ll mostly need time and patience.
Everything started with taking a bus to Santa Maria from the Santiago terminal in Cuzco (US$ 5). The bus was at 08:00 but it ended up leaving at 10:00. The ride is 6 to 7 hours, but there were a couple of incidents…
First, we had a flat tyre and it took them an hour to fix it! When I bought the ticket they told me there was a mud slide and that the bus couldn´t pass, so I had to walk over the mud and there, there would be another bus at the other side waiting to take me to the town.
Because the bus was 3 hours late, surprise surprise, no bus was waiting. This was already 15:00. Oh my God how could this get any worse?
He he, it started raining and I mean hard rain! A woman had a truck tent (don´t ask me why) and everyone was able to find some shelter, but she only whipped it out when we were all already wet.
After an hour of pouring rain the sun finally came out and at least there was a nice sunset while we waited.
Another bus came but it was from another company and we had to wait for the passengers to arrive and fill the bus before we could get in and stand for the next 2 hours. They charged us again of course (US$3). It was 19:00.
From Santa Maria I was supossed to get a microbus to Santa Teresa, but it was already 21:30 and there were no more buses, damn! There were 7 of us, all with the same aim, so we decided to hire a taxi that took us to Santa Teresa at 22:00 for two hours for US$ 5 each. Completely wrecked we made it to a hostal and slept like babies.
Early in the morning, 06:00, we were taking the next microbus heading to la Hidroelectrica (Hydroelectric), 45 minutes away and US$ 1. After a nice breakfast of caldito it was time to start walking towards Aguas Calientes, the town near Machu Picchu.
There is a train but they charge tourists US$ 10 for the ride and I wasn´t paying. This is the train that I never got…
The walk is really nice through tropical forests at the beginning and then on the track of the train.
2 and a half hours and 10 Kms. later we made it! And by 11:00 I had a room in a hostal (the cheapest I could find, this town is for millionaires!) and I was ready to go to the ruins. Again there is a bus that charges US$ 6 each way (10 minutes) or you can walk for an hour and a half uphill. Which one do you think I did???
TO BE CONTINUED…..
Tags: Cuzco, Inka, Machu Picchu, Peru, Simon Uribe, Travel
simonuribe@yahoo.com
Loving it.