Discovering the Incas by motorbike
Trip Start
Jan 05, 2009
1
7
15
Trip End
Jun 30, 2009
Cusco,
Peru
Friday, February 13, 2009
It's been a great race: in less than two weeks we went from Cusco to the very south border of Bolivia, always staying 3000mts. above sea level and just using ground transportation. It's been a lot of fun but also a bit challenging from a physical standpoint! But let's start from the beginning.
We got to Cusco early in the morning and by mid afternoon we had the next four days pertfectly planned to explore the Sacred Valley and visit the Macchu Picchu ruins...the team was already working very efficiently, we didn't even need some trial period!
The choice of the hotel was the first successful one: 5 dollars per person/night, clean, in the very nice San Blas neighbourhood, with hot water always available (a luxury around here)...upon request! In fact to get the hot water we had to go down two floors to the reception and ask for it. The receptionist would then climb up the two floors, work for 10 mins on the heating system and then after 20 mins the hot water was there...a bit complicated but at least it worked. The first time unfortunately we realised this after entring the shower!
Actually JG realised it. He was the first one performing the show and to make sure the procedure was successful he stayed with the receptionist the whole time: nothing strange so far if it wasn't for the fact that he only had a towel around his waist during the whole time!
For what regards the visiting part, "normal" tourists buy a bus tour to visit the Sacred Valley but the team realised that other than efficient, we were also very creative. Passing by a bank, we saw a row of motorbikes, all of the same colours: even if weird we thought they were for renting (a bank renting motorbikes??), so we rushed insight asking for informations. The bank clerk laughed at us but at the same time told us where we could rent them!
Said and done, we rode for 200km. across the Sacred Valley discovering amazing places like Pisaq and Mooray among all and enjoying a breathtaking view on the Andes from the scenic roads while at the same time being free to decide when and where to stop and for how long to hike around the ruins. One of the stop was a completely casual one and not related to Inca ruins but still very nice. During the ride we noticed some cages (big big cages) beside the road: actually it was a recuperation center for wild animals kept in un-legal captivity for too long. One of the guides gave us a full tour of the center, letting us entering the cages where the animals were. In particular it was quite an amazing experienc to get inside the cage of a condor which was as big as a man, but fortunately quite easy going!
The Inca gods also spared us with the rain (very common in this season) so it was an incredibly successful day.
The second creative choice the team made, revealed itself a bit less perfect but still very exciting (and scary at the same time!).
Before leaving Lima, we were all very excited (Melanie a bit less maybe...) by the idea of walking the Inca Trail to get from Cusco to Macchu Picchu but the excitement left us pretty quickly once we found that: 1. the Inca Trail is closed in February for maintenance (we actually read it but we couldn't believe it!); 2. the alternative trails available were not as exciting or too expensive.
We didn't think that train cost was fair (actually JG used a McKinsey tool to analyse the cost/price efficiency of the the solution!) so we bought a car tour to get to Macchu Picchu: they told us that it was an easy 4 to 5 hours drive and then half an hour on a train to get to Aguas Calientes, where we would have spent the night to then climb to Macchu Picchu early in the morning the following day. Second McKinsey analysis and GO decision, tour bought.
Actually the easy drive was a 6 hours painful trip on a micro van, through an infinite series of corners on a very narrow road climbing a 4000 metres mountain.
This was also "seasoned" with a "killer look" driver who thought to be Michael Schumacher, a guy on the van who suffered this driving style (we've been stopping 10 times to make the guy feel better), a flat tyre and a salsa cd looping for the whole length of the trip...the creative choice was starting to reveal its loopholes...once we finally got to Aguas Calientes we immediately bougth a train ticket back to Cusco...actually for the first time the McKisey tool didn't work perfectly! One thing to be said is that the scenery has been beautiful throughout the trip but we couldn't even think of doing it again!
The day after we took a 5 o' clock bus to go to the Macchu Picchu ruins (yes a bus, we didn't feel like walking at 5 in the morning...call us lazy!): the place is spectacular, a really unique place with a stunning view on the Andes and a great atmosphere.
To enjoy a view of the whole village and to finally get some exercise, we decided to climb the Wayna Picchu, a mountain 200m higher than Macchu Picchu. Actually those 200m are vertical and to get there you climb steps built in the rock so it's not what you would call an easy walk To make things more challenging, it poured rain from the very beginning of the hike making the steps really slippery!
We've been motivating ourselves on the way up with idea of the priceless view we would have enjoyed and once there...the whole Macchu Picchu area was covered by clouds and still pouring rain! In the end we managed to see the Macchu Picchu from the top but what a pain!
For the way back we let our "hiking spirit" win on reason and decided to walk down to Aguas Calientes straight from Macchu Picchu without stops...our legs have been soar for the following three days but we made it!
Next following, M&M's and JG on Titicaca lake.
PS1: we've added some photos on Lima to make Massimo's mom happy...so check them out!
PS2: photos order is not exactly following the narration...of course it's been done on purpose to check our readers' attention :-)
