Day 64 – Ollantaytanbo to Cuzco

WOW – Machu Picchu was definitely worth the trip.
The geographical setting of the place, the train ride, the energy there and the mystery that shrouds that place is phenomenal.
This is how it went down: we woke up early to catch the train from Ollantaytanbo to Aguas Calientes, aka Machu Picchu. The train ride lasted 1hour and 45 minutes through a deep valley of lush vegetation.
Arriving in Aguas Calientes you purchase the ticket to enter Machu Picchu as well a ticket for the bus that takes you there in about 20 minutes. Nothing is cheap here but all worth the while.
The mini-bus climbs about 1000 meters through a dirt road that grabs the mountain and twists up and up. The cliffs on the side give you vertigo. Once we got up there we got a guide who gave us detailed information about the entire city.
For me what stood out was the level of sophistication of the agriculture there – they even had a staging or experimentation area to test new crops.
Another very interesting thing was to see how the split the rocks open. They would look for a vein on the rock – a small crack – dig some holes along this line to stick a piece of wood in it – then get the wood wet – the water expands the wood and cracks the big rock open!
After about 2 hours we get the bus back down and the train back to the hotel where we hopped back on the bikes and came to Cuzco.
Beautiful main square.
As we were parked I heard say “You beat me here!” in Portuguese! It was a Brazilian cyclist we saw on the way to Ollantaytanbo yesterday.
We saw him on the road but completely missed that he was Brazilian so we didn’t even stop. In any case, he has been on the road for 2 years and 7 months carrying about 80 kilos on his bike! This is the second trip he’s doing – the first was in 94 where he went from Brazil to the
USA and back! He’s going with NO money so we contributed a little with his trip… very little but that’s all the cash we had at the moment.
He is from Sergipe…

Now at the Casa Andina hotel near the Plaza de Armas…
Had dinner at Cicciolina – one of the best places we’ve eaten so far in this entire trip! Tapas and pasta – very cool ambient and very very tasty food!

From Motorcycle NY to SP