Day 6 TOTORA-AGUAS CALIENTES

Day 6 TOTORA-AGUAS CALIENTES

Written by Sidney:

The next morning was our first day taking a car. We had to wake up early to catch a mini-bus to make two connections to Santa Theresa where we would walk solo for 2.5 hours to Aguas Calientes, at the foot of Machu Pichu. Unfortunately after a slightly late wake up call, and a slow start to the morning, we missed our minibus. Even worse, we were so late that we missed the next (and last) minibus out of town. As our guide scrambled to get everything ready to go, our host began scolding us; apparently our only option now for continuing was to walk.

Miraculously, one truck drove by which had an extra seat and we were able to catch a ride. Wilfredo and I ended up in the bed of the truck, and the views along the road were spectacular. Luckily there were no cows in the back with us, so I stayed vomit-free. Taking the truck eliminated the two transfers we would have done, and we ended up in Santa Theresa a good two hours early. We sat playing cards in a restaurant, killing time until lunch. We tried not to act starving when our guide was fed two hours before us, then fed with us again at lunch, but I think he noticed our pitiful glances (that or Marley's soft cries for "snacks..snacks"), and brought us some snacks for the next leg of our journey, which Marley promptly ate before her lunch dishes were cleared.

We said goodbye to Wilfredo as we hopped into a taxi to the Hidro Electrica (Hydro Electric dam), where we would start our walk to Aguas Calientes. The walk was beautiful, along the train tracks beside a river below the mountains of Machu Pichu and Wayna Pichu. It was the first truly flat hike that we had done, and we practically skipped along (though later talking to a fellow traveler we were surprised to hear that she had found it awful, and the uphill had almost killed her, and did we know that there was a total of 300 m elevation gain along the trail? It was a nice reminder that perspective is everything).

As was becoming the norm on this budget-trip, things didn't exactly go smoothly upon arrival in the town: our designated hotel and did not have a room reservation, our guide had also changed the time we were meeting and dinner wasn't going to be until 8pm. As was also the norm on the trip, everything worked out just fine, with only a slight amount of discomfort: the hotel called our company and eventually got us a room, our guide showed up flustered, ran away with our passports to our distress and we had dinner with the other tourists in our group (surprise we had a large group tour through the ruins!). We were happy that we had eaten a pre-dinner, when dinner was delayed, and then when dinner was tiny we went and had a post-dinner meal. Hiking is hungry work!