Peru: Aguas Calientes

Iv'e had a lot of bad pizza in my life, but Aguas Calientes may be the global leader in bad pizza. I mean, seriously, you can find better pizza under the coke machine of a truck stop that what you can get in Aguas Calientes. I'm not sure they understand the concept.

From Ollaytatambo you must take a train to get to Machu Piccu. It's takes about two hours for the train to travel 25 miles, but it's an amazing ride that ecologically and psychologically is much longer. In that short time the train descends 2,400 feet through a landscape that transforms from sunny, semi-arid mountain farmlands to tight, dark jungle canyons. The transition is complete when you ride into what the locals call the "high amazon." From the train the jungle is lush, and did i mention dark? The river valley narrows to the point that it becomes a canyon, with impenetrable rugged side canyons steeply rising up to snowy peaks as high as 9,000 feet overhead. It is the habitat of the Spectacled Bear.

A short while beyond Ollayntatambo the Urumbamba River gets squeezed in by the Andes. From that point onward the train ride is especially scenic. This set of pictures is taken through the window of the moving train. Unfortunately there were no viewing platforms where i could stand outside.

The road almost never crosses the river but there are a lot of foot bridges. The bottom bridge was accessed by taking some steep Incan stairs down from some ruins above, so i imagine people have been crossing here for hundreds of years. Behind the bridge you can see terraced fields. They were using some of the terraces as foundations for power line towers.

This is not only a cool location to have a home it's also the location of another large Incan City. I did not notice it when i took this picture but a portion of it is clearly visible directly behind the house.

 The train was nice inside

At one point the train has to stop to allow a train coming in the other direction to pass. During that opportunity i opened the window in the bathroom, which was larger for some reason and was able to see clearly outside. I almost immediately got yelled at by the train conductors.

 Some neat granite river carvings.

These ruins are particularly spectacular when they suddenly burst into view during a gap in the forest. Built next to a waterfall cascading over granite cliffs, i found out later that it's accessible via a 5 mile walk along an Incan trail that starts at Machu Piccu.

The largest, and most impressive structure in Aguas Calientes is this large flat soccer field in the back of the town. The day we arrived some kind of band was playing in there and a lot of the locals were relaxing in the field having a good time. That lady in high heels is the most overdressed person in the city.

Aquas Calientes is a new and growing town who's only purpose is to support tourists who are there to see the ruins of Machu Piccu, high above. The town is crushed into a tiny area between giant vertical granite monoliths of rock. I would mention that the town is also penned in the the Urumbamba River, which is a bit larger than it was at Pisac, but that would be beside the point because there is nothing on the other side of the river other than another immense vertical cliff.

Walking around the town i just didn't get a good vibe. I didn't see anything shady going on and there were lots of children running around but at the same time there were people constantly trying to physically drag you inside their restaurants, bands were setting up to play music extremely loud right in front of you after you went into one of the formerly mentioned restaurants, and a super annoying guy who stood above a walkway was shooting loud fireworks all day long whenever anyone walked under him.You had to show an excessive amount of identification to get a bus ride up to Machu Piccu, and the covered market had a lot of garbage of noticeably worse quality than other towns we'd been in.

There are two pretty streams that run through the town from the very steep mountains. One of them has a trail that goes up to a hot springs, hence the town's name. Until the last 20 years the town had been called Machu Piccu and as recently as the early 1990's most visitors just camped in a field.

 Huge granite monoliths rise up in every direction. Machu Piccu is on top of one of them.

The town is built around the train tracks and in this area the restaurant tables are at the same level as the diesel exhaust on the roof of the train. 

Aguas Calientes is bursting forth from the jungle with no apparent planning. Although everything is pretty much brand new, the half-hazard manner that it's being done in and the fact that almost everything looks unfinished gives it the look of a brand new favela.

The Urumbamba river flows between the town and a sheer wall of granite

Cruddy hotels and cruddy restaurants are built unconvincingly on the river bank.

One of the few nice restaurants, we didn't eat at this one though.

The main area of our suite. Out back was a cool in ground jacuzzi and a covered porch with comfy furniture. Weird slow burning jungle wood was provided nightly to burn in the fireplace. It was soft and almost furry wood.

Everywhere in Aguas Calientes is exorbitantly expensive for what you get, prices are much higher for lodging than anywhere else because you have no choices, and everybody knows Machu Piccu is the biggest reason most people go to Peru. So, if you are going to have to pay so much, might as well go all in and stay somewhere nice, rather than paying a few hundred for someplace that isn't nice.

We stayed at the Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel, and it was super nice considering we were in the middle of the jungle. It's on a huge 600 hectare plot of land in the jungle and is expertly landscaped and laid out. The rooms are set in groups scattered around the premises between curving paths often accompanied by fountains or canals reminiscent of the ones in Ollantaytambo.

 Walking around on the hotel grounds was much more pleasant than exploring town.

 This was in a really dark part of the jungle. A cliff wall with some petroglyphs. On the left panel you can make out a spiral.

 Looking up was usually rewarding.

At Inkaterra the restaurant was very good, and the staff exceptionally friendly. I really can only say good things about it. And although our hotel in Cusco was very nice, the ambiance of Inkaterra was such a stark contrast to the town on the other side of the stream that it served as a kind of sanctuary. Just an amazing example of how to do something right, and how to do something wrong.

Approaching the main building of the hotel with the bar and restaurant.

We had most of our meals here

Some of our food. The top is a stuffed avocado and some polenta towers, i don't remember what the bottom one was but it was very good.

I don't know if she had ankylosing spondylitis or this is just how women end up after a lifetime of carrying huge sacks of potatoes and corn on their backs. When the train stopped she and her husband walked all down the side of it selling flowers and whatnot.