we have decided that we dont wanna go to machu picchu with any agency, porters, crowds nor via the inka trail, so we set off to get there free style :) it all starts well with heavy partying the night before (how will i go on without the inka team club in cusco?)so when im woken up by knocking to my door in the late morning it takes me a while to get up and realize what we are supposed to be up to. it sheen who wants to go with us to moray - our first stop on the way to machu picchu and he says i reek alcohol and notices i have the same clothes on as last night and wear slightly melted mascara... oh well, i´ll take a shower, brush my teeth and will be brand new and ready to set off, claro?
we say goodbye to cusco by having breakfast in the restaurant with the pretty waiters and set off to moray around 2pm. so much for an early start...
we make our first stop in moray - a hypnotic place of terrace fields, where the inkas had their ´agricultural laboratory´. they grew diffrent crops and vegs on diffrent levels and sides of this ´valley´ and this way tried to figure out the best way and place for old and new plants. pretty impressive.
via urubamba village we get to ollaytantambo and we spend a night here. we dine and breakfast in a lovely non-profit cafe run by an old english lady who got here a few years ago and decided to open a place which from all the profits go to the communities of the high mountain villages. she runs variuos projects from teaching kechua-speaking kids spanish, providing antybiotics, contraceptives and housing for beaten women.
next morning we go to the ruins of ollaytantambo fortress. really the whole town is like one big ruin...not that everything is falling apart, rather coz the cobblestones streets and huge rock walls are well preserved and it seems like they have not changed much from the inka times. our next step is to take a bus to santa maria and here the mess begins. we ask around and some people say it leaves at 12am from plaza del armas and it takes 4 hours, others say it leaves at 1pm from the bus station, some others that it leaves at 2pm from the street near the river...we get as many versions as many people we ask. oh well. we sit down on the plaza and wait to see what happens. while we are waiting an old lady with a bread stall askes me to mind her business while she disappears (maybe for the loo?). i run her business very smoothly and even sell some buns and earn one sol for here:) bored and hungry we go to have some food and once we order the bus comes! we cancell our order, run for the bus and... are told there are no free sits! we beg and beg and they let us sit on the stairs. after a few houts of a very bumpy ride we get to santa maria and here the real trouble starts. there is no buses to santa maria and as we really want to get there by night we agree to get an overpriced taxi with 2 local men and one doggy-looking old traveller. agnieszka doesnt like the driver´s face from the start but that isnt really time for the nice face contest... or is it?
we get into the back of the car (i mean to the boot as it is a hatchback) and start driving through the night. very narrow, bumpy road. on one side: mountains, on the other side: deep drop...we try not to look at the road and keep ourselves busy with a chat.then all of the sudden the front lights stop working and what does the driver do? keep driving! we are petrified! after a while we stop and all the men look under the mask. as they cant seem to be able to fix it, the driver rings his mate who is supposed to come with a replacement car. while we are waitnig there in the middle of the dark road with 4 strange men we really wish we were more sensible and went with a tour, but it is too late now and there is really nowhere to go. so we wait... after a while another car comes but it has already 3 passangers inside. it turnes out it is not a problem and we fit 9 people (!) into a passanger car! we take our place in the boot again and continue driving. then again we stop in the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere and the driver tells us to get off. we see a huge mud slide in front of us and the whole road is blocked. we argue with the driver, refuse to pay the whole amount, as the ride was arranged to santa teresa and we are clearly not anywhere close to santa teresa. we climb the mud slight, the mud is reaching almost our knees (i exagerated a bit here, it was reaching our calves). it is raining at this stage and it is not very jolly but when we see the rest of the passangers running through the mud we get really scared thinking that maybe some more mud and rocks are falling. but they only run coz they see some cars waiting on the other side of the slide. we get to santa teresa soaked but happy to be around a human settlement again and out of darkness and the boot. we get the best looking hostel (no running water) and go to sleep in a cocroach-infested room.
in the morning we manage to get a ride to the urubamba river crossing and cross it in a so called ´cabel car´. it really remainds more of a few metal sticks on a rope. but it is fun, feels much better and safer than it looks. we climb through the palm and bannana trees and luckily meet a candian family who has a guide, otherwise we would be lost many times. we walk among the mountais and trees and it is all nice and pleasant again. we get to hydroelectric plant and later to the rail tracks and we know that we are on the right way. we walk for 2 more hours down the railway tracks, through the clouds-hidden mountains and we are happy again and glad that we are doing it the way we are doing it :)
we make it to aguas calientes in the afternoon, but decide to leave machu picchu for tomorrow as we would have very little time if we go straing away. aguas calientes, maybe isnt as ugly as everyone says, but is deffinetely ridiculously overpriced. they ask for 7 soles for a snickers! we choose some local buscuits instead.
as we have the whole day tomorrow we sleep till late and miss wayna picchu! the guide book says (never blindly trust your guide book!) that you need to be in machu picchu by 1pm to be able to climb wayna picchu, but when we get on a bus around 12, the ticket lady tells us that we should have been there by 10am to make it!!! we feel like crying! all the way here, all the cartoons watched when i was little (tajemnicze zlote miasta) and we wont be able to see the ruins from the nearby mountain! we are in a terrible mood. but once we get there, walk around and admire everything, we are finally consolled. later it turns out that even at 1pm they would have let us up so here is anothetr lesson: never trust what a ticket lady tells you! anyway, machu picchu is trully beautiful! we walk around the temples, industrial parts, agricultural terrases and residential sites. a bit crazy how everything is named as its ´dicoverer´ Bingham called it. you go to a place named as ´prison´and think it was a prison but then you find out that inkas did not keep prisoners... so it is all how they guy imagined it but not necessary in accordance with history. still amazing, nested among cloudy mountains site. another dream coming true:)
i want to come back the same way as we got here, but it is a bit complcated and whichever way we do it we will lose too much time, so we decide to take a crazily expensive train back, which wont even get us directly to cusco coz the rails are damaged! anyhow, we decide not to talk about the price anymore and about the fact that it only takes us 30 km towards cusco and just enjoy the ride.
we get back to cusco and find out about the plane crush in poland. being so far away, by ourselves, we dont even know how to deal with it.
our trip continues.
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