Monday I boarded a bus in Lima, Perú bound for Cuzco.  Actually the people around here spell it ‘Cusco’ and consider ‘Cuzco’ wrong, but I’ll stick to the familiar spelling.  This was a 20-hour ride over tortuous roads high in the Andes Mountains.  The loftiest peak in the vicinity is Salcantay, at 20,575 feet, which falls over 2,000 feet shy of Aconcagua, in Argentina, the Andes’ tallest.  But what a difference!  The Peruvian Andes are green and gorgeous, worlds apart from the massive blocks of stone in Argentina.

We passed through dozens of forgotten little hamlets on the way, with mostly stuccoed cottages of adobe with terra cotta tile roofs, some of which must have been standing a century or more, moldering so gradually, so irreparably that you can’t tell where nature ends and civilization begins.  Names of villages include Chacoché, Huirahuacho, Lucuchanga, Huanipaca, Apurimac, Saywito, Limatambo, Antabamba and on and on.  These were mostly in the 100 to 1000 population range.  Apparently, the main city on the route was Abancay, a town of 57,000 and capital of a province of the same name.  We crossed numerous rushing, rocky, icy-looking rivers and creeks, sentineled by towering peaks beetling over the two-lane road thousands of feet overhead.  Beneath us coiled chasms and canyons so far below they were lost in the haze.  Agriculture was minimal in most regions, which lacked any level land, but in other regions we saw farms on hillsides and laboriously elaborated terraces propped up by rubblework retaining walls.

We got to Cuzco about noon and I got a room for $8 next to the terminal, in a bleak, dangerous neighbourhood.  Walking around town for a couple of hours, I found one of two train stations and bought a ticket for Machu Picchu, which cannot be reached by bus.  I was shocked that the ticket cost US $60 for a four-hour ride, as the bus from Lima had cost only $28.

Wednesday morning at 6, I boarded the train, which ascended into the higher Andes via a series of switchbacks.  The train goes forward at a grade till it reaches a stopping point, executes a 180º turn by switching onto another track going in the opposite direction at another steep grade.  Repeating this operation 5 or 6 times, the train ‘walks’ up the side of the mountain.  The train reached a maximum elevation of 12,066 feet in the town of Poroy, but all about us there were green peaks, with nearly vertical precipices, with heights of 15,000, 18,000 and 20,000 feet.  Only a few were snow-capped.

We got to Machu Picchu at about 11, but from the train station there’s a half hour bus ride on a tortuous dirt road through dense jungle to get to the Inca ruins.  I was shocked that the ruins had an admission fee of $40, which has escalated today, I hear, to $100 for the Euro-American holiday season.  I actually was all over the places depicted in the link above.  Too, there were llamas, alpacas and vicuñas wandering the slopes.  Surely Machu Picchu is the most beautiful place in the world!

I took the train back to Cuzco about 3:30 PM, arriving around 7.  Aboard the train there was an Inca dancer performing in the aisle, and a fashion show of local ponchos, sweaters, blankets and scarves, which were also for sale.  I got a room in a different hotel for the same $8 price tag.

This morning, I went out to Saqsayhuaman Fortress, near Cuzco.  This was a defensive work of the Incas.  There too there were Indian ladies, in traditional Quechua clothes, with llamas, alpacas and vicuñas, whom you could photograph for a couple of soles (60 cents).  

Right now, I’m in a cyber café near the Plaza de Armas in Cuzco.  Ignore the spelling ‘des Armas’ in the link.  It’s a gorgeous sunny day, and I love Cuzco and Machu Picchu so much that I could stay forever.  Unfortunately, that will not be possible.

At 8 PM, I’ll be on a bus back to dreary, cloudy Lima.

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