13.08.24

In the same way that when you know you have an early flight you sleep terribly, we both slept terribly before our early wake up for Machu Picchu. I was already fully awake at 4am and gave up and got up at 4:20am… then sat about after I had got dressed faffing. We didn’t stop for early breakfast at the hostel, but did leave our bags in storage as we were also checking out.

We followed the steady trickle of people all heading in the same direction: the bus stop. When I saw there was already a big queue I must admit I had a moment of “Damnit! We should have left even earlier!” Because I was under the impression that it was like a ‘one-up-one-down’ situation with the buses. Thankfully I was wrong; they put on loads of buses.

We were on, perhaps the third or fourth bus up. We wended our way up the incredibly windy road. At one point something made a terrifying ‘CLUNK’ under the bus and he came to a stop with the hazards on. He and someone else, I think one of the freelance tour guides, jumped out to have a look. I think there must have been something in the road rather than anything falling off the underside of the bus! He then also stopped to tell a workman on the road that there was something further back so that cleared up that little mystery.

We got to the entrance, and the weather was… concerning me. Verrrry foggy.

Anyway, whilst we waited for the gate to open I spotted Alex’s doppelgänger which completely blew my mind. I thought to myself “How weird would it be if he was also Norwegian”, but then when they ended up next to us in the queue, turns out his partner was Norwegian!Should have made friends with them but it was too early in the morning for niceties. I did take a surreptitious photo of the guy though which is very not cool of me but I needed proof, proof I tell you!

Anyway, we got to the gate, got our lanyards for our specific route, and we were in. The fog was oppressive. We made our way up the route very very slowly, on accounts of a) the altitude and b) both being so unfit. We stopped at various vantage points and attempted to take some photos…

We eventually reached the highest point. Through the mist we could see various poor sods who were being dragged along on tours and were already down exploring the ruins. Alex had gone slightly further down ahead of me and when I eventually followed, a man with a plastic bag asked for my lanyard saying I didn’t need it anymore. Now at this point I was tired, and a bit tetchy so I said “Yes, in a moment, can I just ask my boyfriend something he’s just there.” But the guy, who didn’t look official at all (couldn’t see his lanyard or anything) would not let me pass and began shouting at me to give him the lanyard. I tried to stay calm and say “yes I am going to give it to you I just want to check my boyfriend has also given you his lanyard.” This guy literally would not let me pass any further so eventually I yelled to Alex to come over. At this point the people that were there were staring which was a bit embarrassing. I know I was making an unnecessary fuss but honestly the bloke was being really intimidating and I felt like it was some sort of weird scam… which I know is loony but hey ho it’s how I’m wired! Always suspicious. Alex came over looking alarmed, confirmed he had given in his lanyard so I did too. Anyway after that the bloke who was the gatekeeper effectively stopping people from going back up to the higher vantage point again (one way only) had his eye on me.

You could say by this point I was properly sulking. Full strop. Lots of thoughts of “What was the point of the early start when all you can see is bloody fog?” That said, I was convinced that the sun would burn through at some point and decided we should sit it out where we were rather than go any further down the path. Thankfully, this patience paid off, as little by little, the mist began to clear and we got increasingly clear views of Machu Picchu. Arguably the slow reveal through the mist made it all the more magical, and I am very glad I waited! It would be so upsetting to have been in one of those tour groups being rushed through who basically wouldn’t have seen the ruins at all.

We stayed at this spot for quite a while because Alex wanted to take some proper photos with his proper camera. It was quite nice watching all the various people go past and wait for various bits of cloud to sweep over the ruins to the valley the other side. Eventually we carried on down to go into the ruins themselves. We were held up by a group of (insufferable) Americans who were doing a full photo shoot at one of the viewing points, being incredibly loud, shouting instructions for the perfect shot until their tour guide basically said “No more, we have to carry on now.” We were then very efficient at taking photos as we didn’t want to annoy the other poor people waiting behind us.

We went into the ruins and generally just followed the route path, taking it all in. It really is a magical place and you can’t help but imagine what it must have been like when it was a fully inhabited settlement.

And don’t worry, I got some decent llama/alpaca (think the latter as they’re smaller?!) photos too. They were very chilled. Just vibing.

We felt we had spent enough time here by this point and made our way to the exit and the bus back down the mountain to the town. By the time we got down, it was only about 10am! The day was still young and we couldn’t check into our next hotel until about 1pm. We sat down for a rest and had some breakfast at a nice cafe. Alex had a pretty decent omelette and I had a savoury crepe with egg and cheese in it and avocado on top. Oh, also a very silly iced latte with lots of chantilly cream on top.

As we ate we used the opportunity to decide what to do next. At first we were thinking about going to the hot springs for which the town is named, however on closer inspection on maps it appeared that they were not natural hot springs, but shallow square swimming pools filled with sulphurous-smelling hot spring water. Most reviews were poor, saying that they were tepid at best… probably from all the wee in it. Anyway we thought we would pass on that experience and settled instead on going to a butterfly sanctuary.

It was about a 20-30 minute walk back along the road that the buses come down, although thankfully not to any of the steep parts. We took it slow, looking at the river that we were walking along, spotting birds and butterflies and such.

The butterfly places was 20 soles each, we had a talk in English about the importance of the local butterflies and how they look after them and breed them and study them, and how each one has a specific host plant. Then we went into the butterfly enclosure itself and had ample time to wander around at our own pace. Please now enjoy some terrible photos of butterflies taken with my phone.

Just as we were leaving, the woman from the cafe told us to come and sit down as there was a spot just beyond where they had fruit out to attract the birds. She was probably hoping that we would buy some refreshments but nonetheless I was glad she had told us as it made my bird-nerd self’s day. I couldn’t really get any decent photos on my phone but Alex got one on his camera. Still doesn’t quite illustrate how absolutely beautiful and vibrant they were.

We then made our way back to town… very slowly as we were flagging by this point. When we eventually got back, we had to go get our bags from the first hotel (or hostel… hard to tell sometimes) and then walk back the way we came to the second hotel. I suppose the only silver lining was that it was uphill there and downhill on the way back, so we didn’t have to heft our enormously heavy (they’re not that bad, I was just feeling weak and feeble) bags uphill.

I say this, the new hotel, which was meant to be a slightly nicer, ‘boutique’ hotel (it was actually called Boutique Hotel) was nigh on impossible to find. Alex was actually slightly worse for wear than I was at this point, so I told him to sit down for a bit whilst I went off to find it. I did, eventually. It looked like an empty restaurant from the outside, the sign was dark and inconspicuous and there was no obvious check-in desk, even inside. Someone pointed us in the right direction, down some stairs at the back of the restaurant, and we waited to check-in. It was a needlessly complicated process, considering it was all already booked and paid for online, and the bloke dealing with us was… odd to say the least. After filling in a form each and him saying that he needed to see if the room was ready (bloody well should be, check-in was from 1pm and it was now 2:30pm) and then came back saying it was all fine and led us up. We immediately crashed on the bed. Alex fell asleep immediately and I caught up on some admin. The hotel room was really cute and had a lovely view of the river too. The sound of the water was very relaxing.

Our dinner plans were scuppered with our usual bad luck: there was, oddly, a very highly rated Korean restaurant right by our hotel so we decided to check it out for a change of cuisine. There was a shop part downstairs and a restaurant upstairs… or so we thought. Turns out it shut forever about a month ago. So we went basic and found something touristy on the main square where the host/waiter was extraordinarily extroverted and bubbly. I got ceviche and chips again and Alex got an approximation of a carbonara. Both adequate. The music which was just being streamed from YouTube started off well, and then switched over to the obligatory panpipe covers of, mostly, Simon & Garfunkel songs. Seriously, it’s like the same 6 songs played everywhere.

We paid up… he initially tried to tell us that the card machine wasn’t working because of the WiFi. Buddy, you’ve been streaming YouTube on the telly all evening, we know you just want cash cos it’s easier to launder. But when it was clear we didn’t have cash he got the card machine which, would you believe, miraculously worked!

We then headed back to the hotel and to bed. Busiest day we’ve had so far!