204 days since selling up. David Jones recording.
As I lie here like Barbara Cartland dictating this blog from the day bed in our room, thankfully the brass band, clarinet players and the opera singers from the music school next door have all gone home for the night. They carry on until 6pm everyday, and they need the practice, I assure you.
It's been a tiring few days in the Andes. Yesterday we saw the spectacular ruined city of Machu Picchu, but to get there as independent travellers took a lot of shoe leather.
We planned to go to Machu Picchu on Thursday. The nice lady at the Peru Rail desk at Lima airport said that wasn't possible. So we booked a ticket with her for the Wednesday, but all she could give us was a ticket that meant returning by bus. When we arrived in Cusco and had access to the internet, we discovered that there were seats available to return by train on Wednesday. We decided to visit the Peru Rail office in Cusco to change our ticket. When we got there the nice lady said she couldn't give us the return because the ticket was only available online. But she could refund our return ticket and let us buy a ticket using their computers just across the the way. Success, we thought. But does anyone know how to type an '@' on a Peruvian keyboard? We then spent the next half an hour trying to work out how to put in our email address to buy the ticket. Eventually a kind Peruvian soul showed us how to do it. Success, we thought. Then the printer wouldn't print the ticket! After queuing for another twenty minutes the nice lady at the desk printed the ticket off for us on her machine! Success, we thought. Upon our return to the hotel we discovered you couldn't buy an entrance ticket to Machu Picchu at Machu Picchu. But from the web we found out we could get it at the cultural centre in Cusco town, just off the main square and a short walk away. Success, we thought. We walked to the cultural centre only to find they had moved offices and re-located to the other side of town. So we started off for the new office, via the bus ticket office (yes you also need to buy bus tickets from the train station at Machu Picchu Peublo up to the ruin). Success, we thought. But no, guess what, they'd moved as well. At last after several attempts we truly had success. Return train tickets to Machu Picchu, tickets for the bus to the ruin and our coveted entrance tickets. Let me set the scene. As I had previously informed you Cusco is 3300m or 10,000 odd feet above sea level, and despite being here for six days we've found it difficult to acclimatise, so everything takes a bit more effort than normal. Also for a vote of 'sympathy', I still have a cold (David says this in a pathetic voice!) so it seems to be making adjustment harder.
It was raining when we got to Machu Picchu Pueblo, so we got to use our new breathable rain macks for the first time - they breathed. The rain and misty clouds added to the mystery of the ruins as we climbed up a treacherous road in the bus. And then there it was: Machu Picchu. As picture postcard as any picture postcards. We explored the lost city with about a thousand other people. Each of us imagining we were Hiram Bingham himself: making up our own hypotheses about how the Incas lived. Some of our's were much better than his. For example, we discovered the temple of the three windows was opposite the house of the virgins. Obviously designed to allow the priests to wave at the virgins across the square. It was an early start - 5:30am in a taxi with two Germans, followed by a very slow three and a half hour train journey down to Machu Picchu through stunning scenery. The windows in the roof of the Vistadome train really helped when we were travelling through valleys surrounded by high peaks.
After two hours of running around ruins we descended back down and returned by train to Cusco.
The train had added delights on the way back, including the dance of a devil from a local festival, and even more curiously an alpaca knitwear fashion show, put on by our lovely hosts in carriage F. The man in his grandma-knit seaters seemed particularly pleased with all the limelight.
We've only got one more day in Cusco before we travel even higher (joy!) to Lake Titicaca. We're off to some more inca ruins tomorrow, and we'll have our last day overlooking the city. Let's hope my cold goes very soon as it's only 14 degrees in Puno, with even less oxygen.
Oh, by the way. I just thought I'd include this picture to show you how well Paul is getting on with the local ladies. They are always asking him for a photograph and offering him a massage, only 20 soles for an hour! Such fun!
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