Alright!   The day has finally arrived!

It’s Machu Picchu Day!!!

I don’t know, there’s just something about seeing one of the top sites in the world.   I had the same feeling when I visited places like the Eiffel Tower, Auschwitz, and Angkor Wat.

You just kind of get that certain excitement in you, little butterflies in your stomach in the anticipation of seeing another one of these marvels.

So, yeah, I was pretty excited for today.

Getting Ready

I went to bed at a semi respectable time last night at just before 11pm and I was up bright and early at 6:45 this morning.

A full night’s sleep and I fully rested up and ready to take on the day.

After doing a quick Google search of “do I put on sunscreen or bug spray first?”, I lathered myself in both.

By the way, you put on sunscreen first.

I popped downstairs for the saddest little free breakfast you ever did see – a mix of some sort of meat (bologna?), cheese, and cucumber slices.

Soon after I was out the door at 8am walking towards the shuttle bus pickup point a few minutes walk in the center of town.

The shuttle bus

I had a ticket for a 9:00 entrance which means I had to arrive at Machu Picchu within the 9-10am window.

The shuttle bus takes a half hour which means I wanted to try to catch an 8:30 bus to arrive for my 9:00 entrance time.

The problem is that there’s a long queue for the shuttle buses throughout the morning.

I had read varying reports of how quickly the queue goes but someone local had said that despite the huge line, I shouldn’t have to wait any longer than 30 minutes as the line moves really quickly with shuttle after shuttle doing non-stop pickups back to back.

I got to the back of the very long line at 8:00am and, to my confusion, the line didn’t budge one little bit for the next 20 minutes.

Well, what the hell, man?

And then, at 8:20, the line started to move.

Quickly.

And just 10 minutes later, I was at the front of the line hopping onto one of the 34 seater shuttle buses taking us up to Machu Picchu.

My guess is that they know that buses don’t have to leave until 8:30 for the 9:00 entries so they hold everybody until 8:20 and then load us all onto buses.   They probably do the same exact thing every hour.

The road up was very winding going straight up a mountain taking us from an elevation of 6700 feet to 8000 feet.

Yeah, it was quite a climb and it was pretty cool to look down out of the bus window to see the small little buildings we had passed by on our way up.

Machu Picchu!!!

I had briefly mentioned that I had lathered myself up in sunscreen and bug spray and I should probably elaborate on that.

Sunscreen is kinda obvious, especially with the bald little dome I’m sporting.

As for the bug spray, well, this area is notorious for mosquitos and other bugs that will eat you alive.

To that end, people recommend that you wear long pants and either a long sleeve shirt or jacket.

So here I was, on a hot sunny day at an altitude that probably put me closer to the sun than I’ve ever been, wearing pants and a jacket.

Let’s just say that jacket came right off.

I did think ahead though and lathered my arms in the sunscreen/bug spray combo this morning just in case.

At 9:15 I finally stepped foot onto the grounds of Machu Picchu.

I decided to just go solo and not hire a guide so I could go at my own pace and, for me, it was the best decision.

I had given myself 3 hours to tour the grounds and it actually only took me just under an hour and a half.

It was fun to play the game of squeezing past tour groups and people stopping in the path to take selfies.

Full disclaimer here:   I was one of those people stopping and taking selfies.   I mean, duh!

Also, little trick for future travelers out there:   don’t forget to take the occasional look backwards to see what’s behind you.   Sometimes you see something awesome and I definitely caught a couple awesome views today by doing that.

By the way, all my photos and videos can be found in the gallery at the very bottom of this blog.

And just like that it was 10:30 and I was outside the gates at the shuttle pickup point.

I was equally surprised and impressed that there was not a single souvenir to be found anywhere either inside or outside the grounds.   That may actually explain why there’s a souvenir explosion in Aguas Calientes.

I had also read that you may have to wait for up to an hour to board the shuttle bus back into town but my reality was that I literally walked out the exit gate and straight onto a bus which left just a couple minutes later.

Back in town

By 11am I was already back in town.   A full 2 1/2 hours earlier than I expected.

Last night I had passed by a place offering gluten free pizza so I made a plan to stop there for lunch.   I figured I’d buy a larger size pizza and wrap up a couple pieces to take with me on the train later in the afternoon.   Kind of like a pizza sandwich.

I went back there today and the guy I talked to recognized me and greeted me with a “gluten free pizza, right?”.

Yup.

Don’t hate on the pizza.   I mean I did have 11 courses of Peruvian food the other night.

After lunch I headed back to the market area I swung by last night where there was stall after stall set up looking for some kind of souvenir for myself.

And then I found it…

My new travel buddy!

His name is Edgar and I think him and I are going to go on some great adventures in the future.

In all I walked around the market for a good 45 minutes but I still had an hour to kill.

How about an hour long massage?

I mean everywhere you go in town there’s people asking you if you want a massage.   What if I just said yes?

Best idea ever!

I came out of it feeling super refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the day.

It was now 2:15 so I quickly grabbed my backpack I had stored away at the hostel and walked over to the train station for my 3pm train.

Train back to Cusco

As with my trip in, I had a bi-modal combo of a train ride to Ollantaytambo and bus ride from there back to Cusco.

This time around I was actually sitting forwards on the side of the train with a view.

Oh happy days.

I sat in a section with 3 girls from Venezuela and we chatted for most of the trip about my adventures and about life in Venezuela.   They haven’t lived there in over 6 years but they still have family back home.

It was nice to chat about life in Venezuela because I am genuinely interested in visiting there some day.

From what I gather life turned to crap about 12 years ago and has become not so dissimilar to life in Cuba.

They told me that despite the danger of traveling to certain areas of the country that it could be done if you went with a tour so I might just have to look into that for a future trip.

The train arrived in Ollantaytambo a full hour later than it should have but thankfully the bus was sitting there waiting to take us the rest of the way.

I was separated from my new Venezuelan friends but, honestly, I was pretty tired so I just kind of closed my eyes and half-slept for the 2 hour bus journey back into Cusco.

By 8pm we had finally arrived and I was quickly in a taxi on my way back to the hostel I had just checked out of yesterday morning.

My only regret was not saying goodbye to the Venezuelan trio and, if you’re reading this, contact me on Instagram and I’ll let you know when I do that Venezuelan trip.

A (very) late night dinner

After a quick checkin, I unpacked, setup everything, and put together this blog (well, except for this part you’re reading now) and then headed out for a late dinner.

It was 9:30 by the time I left the hostel and the 24C temperatures from earlier in the day were now dramatically replaced by 10C weather.

I just wanted a small dish, something Peruvian to have for dinner tonight and I was craving Sagipapas which is basically a sausage and potato dish.

I perused a few places on my way towards the main square but none of their menu boards had what I was looking for.

Wow, I thought this would be easy.   Like, I seriously thought it would be a staple on everyone’s menu.

I finally stopped at another small hole in the wall place and asked the man outside if they had it and he said yes.

I asked him to show it to me on the menu because I wanted to know the price and it turns out it wasn’t on the menu.   It’s just something they can whip up.

Well, I wasn’t about to order something that wasn’t on the menu without knowing the price beforehand.   I learned that lesson the hard way when I got scammed in Cuba.

I was actually shocked when he quoted me only s/25 which is about $8.   Considering all the other prices on the menu were in the s/35-40 range I was expecting him to quote me a price around that.

Well, he had me sold.

I sat down and soon after I was munching on a plate of sausage and potatoes.

Now, I will say, there are alot of Peruvian dishes that include potatoes and the potatoes I’ve had so far have been verging on the raw side of things.   So, the potatoes get a low score from me but the sausage and the price get high marks.

Even up until the end I was anticipating the ‘ol bait and switch to find my bill higher than it should be.   Something along the lines of “oh, it was $25USD not s/25” but, nope, the bill was right.

Happy days!

As a side note, after you’ve traveled to different places you start to put up this defensive shield sometimes anticipating the worst in people but most of the time it all works out.   Poor little jaded traveler that I am.

Anyway…

Despite the 10C weather I couldn’t resist snagging a coffee flavored ice cream bar at a corner store down the street for the low, low price of $1.

Eating ice cream in the cold.   Ideal?   Hell nah.   Awesome?   Hell yes!

I was back at the hostel by 10pm, which in hostel life, is pretty damn late.

I took a much deserved shower, finished up this blog, and bundled myself up under the comforter for a nice sleep.

It was a good day.

It was Machu Picchu day!