We woke up early Wednesday for breakfast prepared for another day of making cement to finish up the wash area that we started on Monday. Unfortunately we also woke up to no water in the entire building – any of the buildings at the Alburgue, actually. We soon found out there was no running water in the surrounding neighborhood. Hmmm….I had been planning to shower…. Anyway, one of the key ingredients to making cement is water so that put a damper on our plans. Instead Jacy, Alice and I ate breakfast and then began organizing all of the donations for Friday nights gift exchange.
Brian stopped in to check on us and told us we pretty much had some free time since there wasn’t much we could do and no one knew when the water was coming back on. So after we organized we decided to go into town and do some shopping.
I should mention here that the original plan was that the three of us were going to Macchu Pichu on Wednesday night. Well, actually we were supposed to leave Wednesday by bus for Ollantaytambo and check it out before catching a train up to Aguas Calientes. From there we would catch the train Thursday morning to Macchu Pichu. Globe Aware/Brian were supposed to organize this, but Brian had come to us on Monday evening and said that there was no availability on those days. So the plan had changed to a Thursday/Friday trip. Now we were planning to leave Thursday morning for Ollantaytambo, catch the train to Aguas Calientes in the afternoon and spend the day/evening there, and then go to Maccu Picchu on Friday. The problem was that Brian was an incredibly unorganized coordinator and none of us were feeling particularly confident in his ability to plan this. We kept asking – over and over again – and he kept assuring us that we were going. We asked to get some sort of documentation – we had already forked over $160 for the trip – but for some reason we were unable to get anything on paper…
Before we left for Cusco central we stopped by to again ask Brian about the trip. He again assured us that we were going. Still not feeling comfortable we asked him to call his contact who was handling the bookings and have him come by that evening.
Trust your gut instinct. We all should have done that and just booked the trip ourselves – it would have saved so much headache. But, in our defense, the whole trip to Macchu Pichu is even in the Globe Aware information and so we trusted that they organized this with every group and so we had no reason to believe – at least initially – that there would be any problem.
We went into town shopping and when we got back there was running water again. Brian was engrossed in the World Cup on tv, so about an hour later we finally got to work. We made cement and finished the area where the wash basins would go. Since Jacy and I had cleaned up Monday we were free a little early and went down to the internet café.
On our way up from the internet café we passed Brian. Neither of us saw him until we were practically walking on top of him as he was stooped down in the alley talking to a man. Neither of them looked happy…. I had seen the travel contact on Monday when he came to get the money, and I was immediately convinced that it was him. And then Jacy and I were convinced that something was wrong. We were, unfortunately, correct.
Brian came up and told us that we were not going to Macchu Pichu because there was a train strike the next two days (Thursday and Friday) and there was nothing they could do. Sigh. Sure, like any of the three of us are going to accept that. The worst part is that we knew all day something was going to happen, and we had already planned to go into town and see a travel agent if it did. Thus we immediately bundled up in layers (it was amazing how cold it got when the sun went down) and after a few minute chat with Brian and the travel contact we left to go into town.
What ensued is a very long story of multiple travel agents, multiple stories, confirmation that there was no train strike, and finally us booking our own trip through a rather sketchy travel agent. The problem is that they all seemed sketchy, and at this point we didn’t have much choice.
The plan became: head back to the Albergue and get our bags and then stay in a hostel in town so that we could meet up at 6:30 am to catch a bus to Ollantaytambo with 27 other people. From there we would catch a train to Aguas Calientes and spend the day (Thursday) there. Friday morning we would take the bus up to Macchu Pichu and return all the way back to Cusco that evening.
We went back and quickly packed bags (while Brian tried to explain blah blah blah…but at least he did give us our money back) and then we went to our hostel in Cusco. Hostel Plaza de Armas was like a palace to us at this point. We had a large triple with a sitting area in the middle and … a TV!! Most importantly it had a clean bathroom that had hot water. LOL! It is amazing what you get used to and what luxury can look like after that.
Exhausted but hungry we went a few doors down in the plaza to a pub and had a few drinks and dinner. We needed to be up early to grab breakfast and be at the travel agent at 6:30 the next morning.
Thursday, July 6, 2006
After a good night sleep we woke up and took hot showers Thursday and grabbed a quick breakfast in the restaurant. At about 6:25am we walked downstairs, checked out, and went outside to walk the block to the travel agent.
No one said anything, but I think we were all thinking ‘hmm, I don’t see 27 people hanging out in front of this place….’. Right. No 27 people. Just one Spanish speaking woman with copies of our passports who grabbed a cab and was urgently pushing us into it. Sigh. This was getting old. Okay, what we got from her broken English and the cabbies broken translation was that we had to go to the train station to get our tickets. Remember that we were supposed to be taking a bus the first part of the way and then catching a train an hour and a half away…. Anyway, we got to the train station and were told that the return train for Friday evening was sold out. They could get us on the 1:20 pm train Friday, but we’d have to do Macchu Pichu today. We would get there around 11:30 and have until 5:30 at the ruins. Well, that is more than enough time for me to see ruins, considering the guidebook said you could do a pretty good tour in 4 hours. In my world that would normally mean I’d need less than two, but since it was taking so much effort to get there I figured I should be happy with the extra hours.
The lady and man that we met there bought us tickets and rushed us out to a cab. Now, we had been wondering how this was going to work, considering it was 6:45 and the train left San Pedro station at 6:15. They push us in a cab and hand us tickets that say 6:15….sigh sigh sigh. We try asking, but they kept saying ‘no problem, no problem, go, go!’. So we went.
On our way the cab driver pulled out the train schedule and explained that the next train station was a 20 minute drive away, but that it takes the train 50 minutes to get there. The train gets to Poroy station at 7:05 and leaves at 7:10. We could catch the train there and be on our way. Oh dear. To say that Jacy, Alice and I were nervous on that 18 minute cab ride is an understatement. We had nothing to go on but blind faith. I mean, they had bought our tickets, so it wasn’t like they were just keeping the money. And we did have return train tickets too. At one point someone mentioned that we hadn’t got the hotel voucher for the place we paid for in Aguas Calientes, but at that point it didn’t seem too important. If we actually got there we could deal with that later.
Amazingly we pulled into the Poroy train station at 7:03. We grabbed our stuff and went inside, and about a minute later the train pulled in. We walked on, sat down, and stared at each other in disbelief and relief that we were actually on a train. I have never experienced anything quite so bizarre and nerve racking. But we were on a train. And we were going to Macchu Pichu. And that was all that mattered now.
We all chatted and dozed on the 4 hour train ride to Aguas Calientes. Our tour coordinator met us (and the 27 other people that somehow also ended up there but we have no idea how) and gave us bus tickets up to Macchu Pichu. We hopped on the bus and rode the 25 minutes up the windy roads to the ruins.
Macchu Pichu. At least it really was magnificent enough to be worth all of the trouble.
In the late afternoon we took the bus back down to Aguas Calientes and went to check in to the hostel that we had booked. Of course they did not have a reservation for us, but they could put us in a room. We had our receipt from the travel agent and the hostel said they would contact them but that we would have to pay in the morning if the travel agent did not. Fine. Whatever. That is when you cancel your credit card charge. But again it did come together and they later let us know that they had talked to the travel agent and they were paying.
Jacy, Alice and I walked around Aguas Calientes and grabbed dinner. They both got a massage, but I wandered a bit more and then sat in an internet café for a while. Finally exhausted we all went to bed pretty early. It was a fabulous, but long, day.
