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Woke up in Cusco at 5:45AM to get ready for a long day to and from Machu Picchu. As mentioned earlier, it’s a combination of bus and train segments to reach the Sanctuary, and we won’t return to our hotel until 10:30 PM tonight.

Not having much appetite from the high altitude, breakfast was just juice, fresh fruit, a croissant and Coca Tea. Laura ate similarly, but with coffee and a few sips of my tea. What a difference the coca tea made. With each sip, I felt stronger and more able to do normal activities. Its effect is only temporary, but we were in lower altitudes in the bus by the time it wore off. Peruvians here will often chew on coca leaves all day, as it acts as a stimulant and counters other effects of the high altitude.

First the numbers. The city of Cusco, population 70,000, is at 11,152 feet elevation. The mountains surrounding Cusco (that we need to go over to get to the Sacred Valley for the train are 12,500 feet high. Urubama, where we catch the train, is at 9,514 feet. Machu Picchu is at 7,874 feet elevation.

Today is Palm Sunday, so the crowds were already gathering for the Palm Sunday procession to the Cathedral. Women were making palms to sell. Interesting enough, tomorrow, Holy Monday, (the day after Palm Sunday) when the Patron Saint of Cusco, the Lord of the Tremors, goes out in procession. Priests in black and red lead the procession.

As we head up the surrounding mountains from Cusco, you look down to a sprawling city in the middle of the massive Andean mountain range. Cusco was the Inca capital city, already a large economic hub when the Spaniards arrived. The spanish style buildings are typically built on top of the original Inca stone foundations. I’ll talk more about that on tomorrow’s post.

An hour into the 90 minute bus ride, we stopped at a rest stop with a beautiful overlook down into the Sacred Valley. Bathrooms were available for a Peruvian Soles (about 34 cents), and you flushed using the bucket of water next to the toilet. Local vendors were there in the parking lot. I found a nice Alpaca zippered sweater for $20. It’s not high quality, but was nice enough and large enough to get.

We arrived in Urubamba to catch the train for the next segment. Urubamba is on the Urubamba River that runs down the Sacred Valley. Our train is a private luxury train run by the Hiram Bingham company, that also owns our hotel in Cusco and the lodge next to Machu Picchu Sanctuary. They also provided the bus service from the train station to Machu Picchu Sanctuary. It takes nearly 3 hours to get to Machu Picchu because the train only runs at about 18 mph, given the poor condition of the tracks. But the train itself is very nice. It is similar to other luxury trains we have taken like the McKinley Explorer to Denali and Fairbanks, and the Rocky Mountain Railroad through the Canadian Rockies, although here there was none of the glass domed observation cars. We sat in the dining car most of the time, but ventured back to the bar/observation car a few times for a drink and look out the back of the train. A 3-piece musical group played at the bar the whole time.

Brunch and free drinks were served on the train as we followed the Urabamba River down stream. The river was nearly always fairly rapid , maybe category 2 rapids, indicating we continually descended to lower elevation towards Machu Picchu train station at Aguas Calientes.

The bus ride up to Machu Picchu was, let’s say, exhilarating. The road was not wide enough for opposing busses most of the time, so there seemed to be a sort of game of chicken when encountering an oncoming bus. We arrived at the entrance to Machu Picchu by 12:30 PM. The ideas was that the morning rush of visitors were leaving, making the park less crowded for us.

My next blog post will cover within Machu Picchu. For now, here’s a little teaser: