After luke-warm responses from virtually every other agency in the southern hemisphere, we received a great response from an agency in Montevideo and began planning our escape from Pisco. Miraculously, we happened upon two airline tickets to Montevideo on Christmas night for $288 (normally, plane tickets are $600+ dollars)!!! Staying in Pisco awaiting our flight was NOT an option, so we decided to go to the world-famous Machu Picchu before heading back to Lima to vacate this country.
Anyone who has ever traveled in Peru would know that there are no bus routes, prices or bus schedules online (besides the Cruz del Sur bus whose schedule and prices are acctually inaccurate). Therefore, in order to travel, one must show up at a bus station and cross one’s fingers. The bus prices change minute to minute based on race, nationality, gender, and other factors we cannot determine. In order to gather some information, we picked ten people’s brains on the best way to get to Machu Picchu and got ten different answers. So, we ended up taking a taxi to the Panamericana Highway and hailing a Flores bus down to Ica. Once in Ica, we were told that the next bus to Cusco was full and that the only available bus for the day would be one at 9:30pm. We decided to kill three of those four hours by going to a few wineries. The tours were pretty cool and the Pisco was good enough that we bought a few bottles.
At about 10:30pm, our 9:30pm bus finally departed and we began our “14 hour” bus ride which actually took 17 hours. The bus ride is not recommended for anyone who gets motion sickness or altitude sickness, or has hemorrhoids, as the bus ride curves and winds the whole ride up to about 10,000 ft in Cusco. We chose the cama seats for our ride, which included 2 meals, 2 movies, and seats that reclined to about 150 degrees. We think the seats were well worth the extra soles. The drive to Cusco is absolutely beautiful! There are llamas, donkeys, and cows EVERYWHERE. Not to mention the incredible mountains. Just don’t look at the edge of the road if afraid of heights.
We had heard that Cusco is ok, but it is better to travel a bit further to a town called Ollantaytambo because it is a much more beautiful village and because it is much closer to Machu Picchu (which is not actually in Cusco although everyone in Peru speaks as though it is). So, we found a taxi and paid him 50 soles for the 1.5 hour drive to Ollantaytambo. This village is definitely the best place we have been in Peru. All of streets and pathways are cobblestone and the entire village is surrounded by green, lush Andes Mountains. There are also some Incan ruins that can be hiked to for free, which we did today:
Anyone who has ever traveled in Peru would know that there are no bus routes, prices or bus schedules online (besides the Cruz del Sur bus whose schedule and prices are acctually inaccurate). Therefore, in order to travel, one must show up at a bus station and cross one’s fingers. The bus prices change minute to minute based on race, nationality, gender, and other factors we cannot determine. In order to gather some information, we picked ten people’s brains on the best way to get to Machu Picchu and got ten different answers. So, we ended up taking a taxi to the Panamericana Highway and hailing a Flores bus down to Ica. Once in Ica, we were told that the next bus to Cusco was full and that the only available bus for the day would be one at 9:30pm. We decided to kill three of those four hours by going to a few wineries. The tours were pretty cool and the Pisco was good enough that we bought a few bottles.
Here is a panoramic view of the village from the ruins:
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