Apologies – this is a long one! Again, if you are here to read about Machu Picchu, jump ahead to April 26.
April 25 – En route to the Sacred Valley
We are on our own, without our Spanish-speaking hosts, and the cracks are starting to show. Although we did discover that Jennifer speaks some passable Spanish, and we’ve had to rely on her a few times.Â
I am now the tourist leader of the group, hand-selected by Vanessa. Before she and Paul departed, she gave me a packet of tickets critical for our final days in Cusco: Train tickets to and from Aguas Calientes (the town at the base of Machu Picchu), bus tickets to and from Machu Picchu, and Machu Picchu entrance tickets. She and I ran through the tickets several times to make sure I knew what was needed and when. I am a control freak and would not let anyone else hold onto their own tickets (it helps to know that Jennifer already lost her wallet containing all her credit cards).
We had a new guide pick us up at the hotel to drive us to several tourist destinations on our way to the Sacred Valley hotel. Right off the bat, things are not smooth-running. The guide asked us for our “multi-coloured tourist tickets”, which are absolutely not in the ticket package that I reviewed multiple times with Vanessa. Urgent texts to Paul (who is en route back to Vancouver) with promises to “get back to us”. Meanwhile, the guide drove us about 4 blocks from the hotel and then parked, stating that we were going to “wait for a bit for them to arrive” (no idea from where???). Then, suddenly, it was ok after all and we were off. I never did figure this out, except that it seemed these magic, colourful tickets were included with the tour and so the driver was supposed to buy them. Anyhoo…
The first stop on our en-route-to-Sacred-Valley tour was in Chinchero at a textile manufacturing place, to Jennifer’s absolute delight.
Demonstration of the processing of the fiber. Wash with Saqta root, which lathers naturally and cleans the wool to a soft white texture. The wool is then spun with a hand held pushka. Finally, we were treated to a demonstration of the natural dyeing techniques, which use elements such as:
- Purple corn
- Small insects – cochineal – that when crushed produced a bright red dyeÂ
- Stone that was like a crystal of some kindÂ
- Cauliflower
- Beans or peas in podsÂ
The site included a shop, of course, where you can buy items that have been hand-dyed, -spun, and -woven. It can take 1-2 months to make one shawl or table runner, and the prices, while expensive, seemed underpriced when taking this effort into account.
Continuing on to our second stop, we found ourselves blocked on the highway by what appeared to be a transport attempting a U-turn on a narrow mountain road. In a strange yet endearing turn, a group of locals that included women from a nearby market and drivers of the blocked cars (including our driver) scrambled to bring flat stones from the fields and wedge them under the front tires of the truck. It took about 15 minutes and the truck was able to drive off.
Our next stop on the Road-to-Sacred-Valley tour was in Maras to see the pre-Incan salt mine. The mine consists of about 4,500 ponds built at the base of a mountain and designed to collect runoff from a natural mountain spring. For reasons nobody can fully explain, this spring water, coming from a mountain 3000 m above sea level in the middle of the Andes, is salty. Is there an aquifer from the ocean? Or did an ancient ocean get trapped underground during the plate tectonics movement? Nobody knows! Once upon a pre-COVID time, tourists were permitted to walk around the salt mines and you could dip your hand into the spring to taste the water. During COVID, they realized that many people were spitting the water back into the runoff and thought this was perhaps unhealthy. So another COVID silver lining – the salt you buy here is no longer contaminated with tourist saliva.
We visited the site during the wet season, which really just means the salt ponds are full of muddy water. During the dry season the water evaporates and the salt is harvested. Historically, salt used to be a very expensive commodity, but today nobody is getting rich from this site, but they mine it anyway to serve the nearby town. And also to sell to tourists.
After our mandatory salt purchases, we headed on to our third stop, the Inca ruins at Moray. The ruins are huge, circular, terraced depressions or bowls. It is believed that the site was used by the Incas as an agricultural laboratory, with each level of the terraces acting as its own micro-climate.
Our final destination was the town of Ollantaytambo, site of another Incan ruin. We took the scenic route so that we could stop at Mirador Del Valle Sagrado (literally “Sacred Valley Viewpoint”). Definitely worth a stop, although it was followed by the most harrowing drive to date, a ludicrous road winding down an extremely steep mountainside. I am certain that at one point we could have taken a photo that would have captured 4 U-turn signs in a single frame.
The Incan ruins at Ollantaytambo once served as a royal estate and eventually as the stronghold for Manco, leader of the Inca resistance. The ruins are impressive on a scale that has yet to be calibrated to include Machu Picchu. Â
And at least, we were on our way to our spa hotel in Sacred Valley, the much-touted Aranwa Sacred Valley Hotel & Wellness! Apart from Machu Picchu (tomorrow) we had some free time and were looking forward to some more spa time. However this would not pan out as anticipated. Our first sign of trouble in paradise was when we were detoured onto a kilometer-long dirt road riddled with mud-filled potholes. Our second sign was when we finally arrived at the hotel (& wellness!) and they didn’t seem to have our reservation. Luckily I had a printed copy of our tourist voucher which they were able to use to eventually confirm us and check us in. Sign number three was when they told us we couldn’t have two keys for our room because we were staying in a “Colonial Room” in the historic part of the hotel. This, as Jennifer proudly brandished her second key to their Colonial Room, which I pointed out to the check in clerk to exactly zero avail. I’ll mention at this point that our historic Colonial Room required a key to both enter and exit the room, meaning if I got up early in the morning and left the room (like I always do), if I left the key behind I would be locked out of the room, and if I took the key, Jeff would be locked in. Personal safety doesn’t seem to be a part of Wellness.
To take our minds off the awkward beginning we headed for the hot-tub, much desired after several days of mountain touring. The hot tub turned out to be not hot at all, so we asked for it to be turned on and after being told it should now be hot, it was still tepid at best. We complained so the hotel worker came out to measure the temperature and said it was fully heated, and showed us the thermometer to prove it. The thermometer said 30 degrees. Now, I’m not sure where you stand on hot tubs, but I was expecting something around 38 degrees. 30 is a swimming pool. We passed on the tepid-tub and decided to go for happy hour with Jennifer and Cameron instead, where we discovered that “happy” hour at the Wellness hotel is 15% off one of two cocktail options and 0% off everything else. The dominoes just keep falling.
Did we have dinner at the Hotel Aranwa? I can’t even remember, but we must have because there was literally nowhere else we could go
April 26 – Machu Picchu
We had to leave the hotel at 6 am, and so when we checked in, we asked the front desk to make us take-away breakfasts, which they did for us at the Cusco Aranwa. However, when they found out we were leaving at 6, they informed us that the breakfast buffet opened at 5, so …. we should just eat there instead. We tried to explain it was the difference between getting up at 5:00, or getting up at 5:55 and they said they’d look into it. Happily, last night they called our room to let us know it was possible.
Well, we didn’t think to ask if Jen and Cameron also got a call (they didn’t) and so only 2 take-away breakfasts were made up. Strike 5. No, strike 6! Our driver waited fairly impatiently while the staff threw together two more breakfasts, and then we headed back to Ollantaytambo to catch our train.
It’s worth noting that Ollantaytambo is the starting point for the 4-day Inca Trail hike to Machu Picchu, which many people asked if we were doing (no thank you), but it’s also the departure city for the luxury 1.5 hour Vistadome Observation Train ride to Aguas Callientes at the base of Machu Picchu (yes please!)
The train was far superior to 4 days of camping IMO. We had gorgeous views, complimentary snacks to supplement our hotel breakfast, proper bathrooms, and comfy seats. When we arrived at Aguas Callientes we had another escort show us where we would be having lunch (included) and where to catch the bus up the mountain. Without Vanessa to guide us, we were a bit concerned about the line up for the bus – our Machu Picchu tickets clearly stated 12:00 entry with a 30 min buffer, but we were assured that the “12:00 buses” would get us there on time, and they did.
It’s worth confessing now that both Jennifer and I were indifferent about Machu Picchu – it’s upsold by people to a degree that made us both expect to be disappointed, and I also envisioned Disneyland-like crowds turning a magical place into a tourist nightmare. Things didn’t look good at the entrance with a fairly long line up to get in, but we followed our guide past the gate, down a pathway, up a couple of flights of stairs and over to the edge of a grassy terrace to see …. the MOST MAGNIFICENT SIGHT!!! Machu Picchu laid out below us in all its amazing glory! This was an absolute highlight of the trip. Crowds were no issue at all, either because the site is so huge that the individual tour groups were always quite far away from us or because they limit the numbers, possibly based on how many buses can go up and down the mountainside. Whatever the case, we often felt as though there was nobody else there at all!
Some of the incredible things that were being built at Machu Picchu:
- Astronomical constructions, with orientations aligned to a solstice or equinox.
- The temple dedicated to Sun worship
- Homes for the people who would have lived there
- Granaries
- A Quarry that provided all the stones they used for building
- A University
- Small channels to direct water from the mountain
- Terraces much like in Moray for agriculture, possibly
The tour lasted 2 hours, and took a total of 12 hours of travel time (6 out and 6 back, including various wait times). Totally worth it!
The evening Vistadome train featured a visit to a bar car and observatory car with a balcony looking out at the locomotive. There was also a short music and dancing performance, and free drinks that turned out not to be free. Back at our seats in the Vistadome car, there were snacks and a fashion show of Alpaca products that we were invited to purchase at the end of the trip. (Note: there was a gorgeous Alpaca coat – not cheap – that I regret not buying.)
April 27 – Back to Lima
We had a morning free but nobody wanted a spa treatment, we were all pretty disillusioned with the hotel by this point. I wandered the resort grounds and got to watch some hummingbirds, and also finally spotted the elusive southern house wren. I met Jeff for the breakfast buffet and we were invited to fill in a survey. This should be fun! We logged our 3 biggest complaints – the fact that we were only allowed one key for the room, the tepid “hot” tub, and the delayed check in because they didn’t seem to know who we were. All guides and hotels have pretty much begged us to leave 5 star reviews and I suspect the hotel will be horrified at the lack of 5 stars from us.
Our driver today taking us back to Cusco for our flight to Lima is Daniel, our least favourite driver from rainbow mountain day. He’s the one who likes to accelerate to speed bumps and then brake hard to bounce over them. Very nauseating.
Today is a good transfer day – rain is coming. We also got rebooked onto a flight that seems to be a couple of hours earlier than the previous flight which is excellent, we should actually be back to Paul and Vanessa’s at a reasonable time.
April 28 – Late flight to home!
We had a full day in Lima, as our flight home leaves at the ungodly hour of 3 am. We went to the nearby cat cafe with Jen and Cameron (cat visiting time was not yet open), and we enjoyed one final meal at Rosa Nautica and left for the airport around 10:30 just so we didn’t have to sit around the condo doing nothing for 2-3 hours. We purchased some chocolate and coffee, had a bite and then flew home on an uneventful late night / early morning flight.
And that’s a wrap! Would I go to Peru again? Yes!! There are places we didn’t visit. Paul and Vanessa have another condo right on the beach in the north of Peru, more of a swimming beach versus a surfing beach, and we didn’t go see the floating islands of Lake Titicaca, for starters. A huge thank you to Vanessa who’s travel agent talents made this a worry-free trip of a lifetime!
El Fin.