The long opening act for Machu Picchu

Day 8: Lares -> Aguas Calientes

Today was a simple 2 hour hike downhill to the hot springs in Lares, and a relaxing end to the hiking portion of the trip.

A few noteworth items about the hot springs:

• Each pool was a different temperature
  
• There were private rooms, which sat empty until you paid for them. Sadly this was bad marketing, as the baths looked pretty disgusting when empty.
  
• Shortly before taking this photo, one of our guides discreetly peed in the corner of the lawn, 20 feet from a free bathroom. He didn't realize I could see him from my perch on the other side of the river.
  
• We accidentally spent most of our time in what appeared to be the unofficial make-out pool.
  
• The changing rooms had no curtains. Since there was no door in the entryway, people bathing could just look in and see you naked, seemingly defeating the whole purpose.

The building anticipation of tomorrow's early morning visit to Machu Picchu made the rest of the day drag a little, or rather, perhaps everything just took longer than Edgar had indicated (he has a habit of doing that). We left Lares on our mini-coach bus, winding along the only dirt road out of town. Many of us on the left side of the bus, Janet especially, had a hard time looking out the window without peering down the steep mountainside just inches (and no guardrail) away from the bus. Closing the curtain put that sight out of mind.

The trip was incredibly scenic, most of which was climing the winding road up one side of the deep open valley, and then over the pass and back down the other side. Every few miles there would be a tiny mud brick house, surrounded by hilly farmland and boulders, with snowcapped peaks in all directions. It was a full hour and a half before we saw another car on this one lane road.

We arrived at a "local bar" to a bevy of tasty snacks which would ultimately lead to our snacking downfall. All over the country you can find what we started calling chicha, because we could never remember the second part (chichasala?). Basically, it's like giant kettle corn, but a little less sugary. Buy the end of the trip, we were buying in bulk.

The bar did have some cute inhabitants:

Our next stop was the ancient city of Ollantaytambo. I won't bore you with the historical details, but they can be found here. The coolest thing about this tiny little town was the streets. Each was cuter than the last, narrow, with high stone walls, many of which were still original.

The central plaza downtown had these really neat trees with bell-like white flowers hanging down. I'd never seen them before:

With enough time to sit down and order a tasty pancake, that's just what we did, at a cute lonely place upstairs whose ambience was ruined by the blaring TV (which I shut off as soon as the other table had cleared out and the owner stepped into the kitchen). We told him: "Solemente tenemos viente minutos" (we only have 20 minutes), to which he replied, "Viente? Puedo hacerlo en dos" (20? I can do it in 2!).

To make a long story short, 18 minutes (and several urgings) later he brought out the pancakes (one for each of us, even though we ordered only one), giving us two minutes to eat before our bus was leaving for the train to Machu Picchu. We ended up scarfing down one and politely demanding some method of taking the other with us, so we cut it up and put it in a plastic bag and he gave us his worst metal fork. (The fork accompanied us until the second to last day of our trip, where it was confiscated by airport security). We made it to the bus on time, but surprisingly, no one else on the trip wanted to take a few bites of my pancake in a bag?

After an uneventful train ride in the dark with a bunch of rowdy highschoolers, we arrived at Aguas Calientes. This is a tiny little tourist town that exists mostly as a place to stay before you visit Machu Picchu. But it was hard to get a good sense of it at midnight. This little guy was having a blast though, sliding down the steep streets on a flattened plastic bottle.

Despite having to ask for directions 4 or 5 times, Edgar #1 eventually found our hotel. Basically you walk through town until you get to the railroad crossing, then walk along the tracks, past six consecutive pizzarias (no, I am not exagerating), until there is nothing left. There on your left: El Continental.

The check-in process was smooth, except for the part where the guy told us he needed to make copies of our passports, and then left the building. He came up to our room 10 minutes later and dropped them off. Phew.

After devouring one of the local granola bars (which are like ours except without all the goeyness and sugar to hold it together, meaning by the end of it you are basically covered in what looks like birdseed), we went to sleep, eager to meet the group at 5:45am and avoid the crowds.