Still in Cusco

So everything over the past few days has gone pretty much exactly to plan. We spent the next couple of days ticking off the remaining tourist sites in the area, all very impressive I have to say. We even managed a couple of extra sites, including the mad salt pans of Maras that have been harvested for the past 500 years and completely cover an entire mountain side, and a huge gateway across a narrow valley. The salt pan trip actually took in 4 different sites in the one day, and involved getting 6 local buses and a taxi - that of course ripped us off as there is no public transport (ggrrrr!!).

Having stayed so long in our hostel we got to know a few of the people there, especially an author and part-time Bollywood actor from Australia, Glen. We also met Eric, an American who is cycling from Alaska to Patagonia, and has been on the road for 14 months now. Eric's mate Travis arrived too, as he was joining Eric for a 3 week cycle holiday. One of the nights we went to a pub quiz and naturally enough we won (many of the questions were biased towards America, so Eric was definitely the star of our team, while Travis fumed over the True/False section!).

But we'd saved the best until last I suppose, mainly because I hadn't been sure of the best way to get to Machu Picchu (there are many options). In the end, seeing as how we'd become so accustomed to getting local buses around all the nearby sites, I just decided to go local again. This was a far more round-about route (you can just get a train straight there), but it's by far the cheapest and of course the most adventurous.

The first step was to catch a local bus to the town of Santa Maria (6 hours away), where we waited around for a minibus to fill up with people and take us to the next town of Santa Teresa. But while waiting we met a Spanish tourist, Alex, and ended up sharing a taxi with him (with his perfect Spanish he managed to negogiate a great price for us all), and a local Peruvian guy.

So we flew along in our little taxi along a dirt road that literally hugged the edge of a mountain side. The road afforded great views of the valley we passed through of course, but also of the shear drops just inches away (and of our driver narrowly avoiding a head-on collision, followed by some shouting). From Santa Teresa Alex got us another cheap taxi to take us the next leg of the trip to a hydro-electric station, and from there it was a 2.5 hour hike along the train tracks to the tourist town of Agus Caliente at the base of the Machu Picchu mountain. We arrived just as darkness set in, and it had been a long day, but Agus Caliente seemed like a nice town (the guidebook criticises it terribly for some reason). After checking a few hostels we got a lovely cheap place with ensuite, had a shower and met Alex again for dinner.

We decided to meet up again the next morning at 4am so that the three of us could hike up the mountain and arrive before the hordes of lazy, fat-ass tourists aboard the tour buses, so it was an early night.