Day 12, 13, 14 - January 15, 16, 17 - Machu Picchu, Peru

Machu Picchu - photos
The Fantastic, the Bad and the Ugly
The Bad
Where to begin, the last entry before we left the ship for a 3-day overland trip to Machu Picchu. Day 1 we were delayed getting to port by about 3 hours by fog. We had sailed for the previous 2 nights fog horn blasting constantly. So, after sailing miles with no visibility, we came to a complete stop outside the port. It sounded like a half-dozen other ships at anchor just blasting horns at each other. Near 11:30am, a pilot came out and a tug lead us into the breakwater and finally got docked. It was a marine layer, because ashore was all clear. Paul, Lima Tour's rep aboard, said that the airport had not been affected by fog. The 69 people going to Machu Picchu had missed our flight. There was a predictable amount of confusion and little information sharing either verbally or in printed form. Every piece of information we were given turned out to be wrong. For example, we had been sitting in Mariner Lounge since 8am as directed when the Theater was no longer available. Games were impromptu scheduled since we still were anchored. We moved to our cabins. As instructed, then back to Mariner Lounge, claimed our passports as soon as we could see the dock. We were given letters at that point credited to Lima Tours and RSSC corporate office in FL, and told to go up to the pool deck to eat lunch while the ship cleared. Our lunch in Cusco would be cancelled because of our late arrival/departure. We read the letters going to the pool deck. An excerpt: "As the original flight to Cusco has already departed, the decision has been made to charter a Star Peru jet, with a projected take-off time around 1:00pm. Although Regent is incurring considerable additional expense to do this, we are happy that this option is available to us. No part of this unexpected operational expense will be passed along to you. And, apart from one luncheon, the program will continue as originally planned."
In reality, we got to the airport about 1pm. Our AM flight was canceled by Star Peru because our 69+ people did not arrive. We flew a fully loaded jet that took off about 2pm.Take off delayed until all the seats on the jet were filled in with locals. So, the flight crew said the jet was not a charter. Although RSSC paid for a charter, Star Peru just diverted a less than full plane from elsewhere to pick us up and take us to Cusco. That is just rude! We arrived about 3:45pm in Cusco. They had alunch waiting for us at the hotel. No one could eat because we just had ham sandwiches and chocolate cake with Inka Cola on the plane. Plus, we were starting our afternoon touring in Cusco at 4:30. We had just arrived at over 11k feet altitude and been warned to eat lightly, go slow and rest after the flight before starting to tour. Of course, no one wanted to eat another buffet lunch or miss the newly rescheduled, truncated afternoon tour. So, the resting portion of the afternoon was gone. Dinner was also pushed back by 30 minutes. The letter did not mention the afternoon tour truncation either. Check-in was very efficiently handled. We were all seated and offered Coca Tea to help with altitude adjustment. Our names were called and they brought us forms to fill out and then turn in at the front table to claim our room keys. We had been booked in a triple, but we wound up with Debbie and Margie in a room with 2 twins on the 3rd floor and Clay in an identical room on the 2nd floor. Don't think prices were posted earlier, but we paid $2275 per person for the trip.
4:30pm, we walked right across the street from Hotel Libertador to the Santo Domingo Convent, known as Koricancha or Sun Temple of the Inca. This was our first look at and lesson on Incan stonework. It was really impressive. We walked out through the attached church that sits atop the curved Incan stone wall which is visible from the park below. That was the shortest downhill stroll to large buses. Only smaller shuttle vans can pull right up to the Hotel Libertador. We loaded the buses and drove to the Plaza de Armas to visit the Cathedral. This was a really impressive and enormous place that was divided up into several smaller, but still huge chapels, choirs, sacristies, etc. There was a lot of gold and silver and mirrors and a vast array of crucifixes and Madonnas, saints and really large-scale oil paintings. We had a marvelous guide named Harvey who told us a lot of stories about what we saw in the Koricancha and in the Cathedral. Sorry, but no photography was allowed in the Cathedral. Then, we drove by Sacsyhuaman on the hill above Cusco. We did not have time to get out of the buses there and could only take photos from the bus. It was nearly dark now. We drove back to near the hotel and Harvey led us downhill to it. We had 30-40 minutes to freshen up for dinner at 7:30pm.
We shopped instead.

7:30pm we loaded the shuttle vans again and arrived at Plaza San Cristobal above the city about 8pm. We were greeted by a children's choir. Dinner was under a tent with masked dancers and some musicians. (As we exited the airport, there was a billboard about a local theater and the photo on it was similar to the masked group that awaited us in the tent. We were never really told anything about the troupe or the significance of their songs and dances.) It was about 47F the night we were in Cusco according to weather.com. Fortunately, there were some big propane heaters under the tent so it was not too uncomfortable for those away from the open edges. Everyone stayed bundled up in layers for the entire dinner. It was a beautiful setting with Cuzco lit up below us. We were plied with alcohol although we had been warned off it to minimize the effects of the altitude. They served hot wine, Pisco layered drink with OJ and banana creme, local beer, red and white wine, and water. The menu: appetizers were beef and pork, on sticks with dip - toasts with sauteed mushrooms - Shrimp mousse with toasts - beef with risotto and asparagus sauce - mango mousse with crepes. Still not too sure about the beef. Everyone at our table had a piece of meat that was shaped differently, some were in scary shapes that looked like they had legs, tails, etc. All were cooked however they came and each piece ranged from rare to well-done within a single serving. We did not have steak knives and the meat was too tough to cut, so forget chewing. No one at our table ate much. We were all tired from all the hurry-scurry waiting here and there and the altitude combined with the alcohol that all we really wanted to do was go to bed and lie down. Fireworks were at 10pm and were 3 blasts. The first went off while we were in the tent and scared the bejeezus out of us. We thought one of the propane heaters had been knocked over. People ran out the back of the tent and we could see and smell smoke. Then, 2 more blasts came before we could get in a place to see the sky overhead. By then the guides were directing us to load the buses. They told us our time was up and we had to leave now. There were some vendors around and there were women posing with about a half-dozen llamas by the parked vans. It was a bizarre ending to what had been a good evening. Debbie had a very bad headache and was seeing a little double even though she only had a half-glass of white wine with dinner We went to the reception desk and requested oxygen. They told us they would bring it to our roomand asked if we wanted a wake up call, we all declined the wake up call. A guy with an oxygen tank came to the room and set Debbie up and told her 3 minutes and held up 3 fingers. OK. He was back knocking on the door exactly 3 minutes later, we reckoned he must have stood just outside and timed it. He asked Debbie if she felt better, she had just told Clay that her headache was clearing. About the altitude effects, you just feel really heavy and sluggish and maybe headachy. Debbie dropped a pen as she was unpacking the suitcase immediately after check in and crouched down and bent over to retrieve it and it was all downhill from there. Once her head was below her knees she could hardly even get up and had the headache until we got down a few thousand feet to Machu Picchu the next day. We all noticed that our hearts were beating too rapidly and Debbie had shortness of breath also. When Debbie woke up the next morning she had a pulse over 120 before getting out of bed. That may have been because the phone startled us, but that is another story. Seems that there was a large group checking out the next morning, not us. Unless you had arranged a wake up call, you got the mass-programmed wake up call at 5am! So, a large percent of our group were awakened on the 16th at 5am. We did not have breakfast until 6am, we did not have to meet in the lobby to head out to MP until 8:15am, so many of us started out already exhausted. We were told that the wake up calls were just a mistake. Duh! Clay went out walking around Cusco for some photos while the sun was rising. Debbie got some more oxygen. Margie forgot to take her shampoo into the shower and washed her hair with a bar of soap. The shower was just bizarre, the temperature of the water coming out of the faucet had no relationship to the temperature of the water that came out of the shower head when you turned the diverter. Of course, as in all hotels the hot/cold would fluctuate as people around you use faucets or flush toilets, but this was just weird. You had to have it scalding your hand at the lower faucet before turning up the diverter to the shower head and then just getting warm water. Oh, we had bed gifts! We each received an embroidered Hiram Bingham bag, in the style of an old-fashioned gym bag, with an extra shoulder strap.
The Fantastic
Breakfast at the Hotel Libertador was an impressive buffet. We love to try local foods. They had salty and sweet tamales and crepes with what we know as cajeta. This is a thick kind of dulce de leche. The pitcher was labeled in English as sweet milk. They had eggs made to order and cereal and fruit and breads and juices. We all ate lightly as instructed. We loaded the shuttle vans at 8:15am and drove to a nearby town of Poroy where we went to the train station and boarded the Hiram Bingham train to Machu Picchu. Seating was assigned, but not. It was really confusing and we received no instruction. We were greeted by a troupe of musicians, singers and dancers and waitstaff with champagne, OJ and mimosas. We knew we were in for a 3.5 hour ride and we were going to be served brunch. They did head counts as we were boarding but it was not clear what they were doing. We were seated with Debbie and Margie sitting facing the engine end of the train on one side of a booth and Clay on the other side facing backwards. Clay does not get motion-sickness. There was a booth for 2 people across the aisle from us. Soon after we started moving the first person came and asked Clay to move to another car. We explained why he would not. The person explained that the only 2 seats RSSC had left were in 2 different cars and that a couple would be separated and were for now remaining in the bar car and they could not stay there. We said that there were a lot of singles on the excursion and we would be happy to have them seated at the empty seat in our booth but that we would not separate to accomodate the couple in the bar car. Another person came and again asked one of us to move. We again replied no and asked to have a solo travler seated with us. A third person came and asked if we would all three switch seats to another car. Yes, if we were not separated and Margie and Debbie could face forward. The answer came back that this would require the couple seated across the aisle from us to move. At this point everyone was laughing at the absurdity and wondering why no one had bothered to explain it beforehand, and either sort us into seating partners, or let us sort ourselves, before we boarded the train. The couple across the aisle was not wild about moving but were willing. Margie asked Ann, the RSSSC Tour Desk escort, if we could please have Linda join us. She was a woman traveling alone that we knew. Ann said she thought all the singles had paired off and were conversing and she felt funny asking one of them. Debbie described Linda. Ann knew who we were talking about and said she would go ask her. The couple across the aisle was relieved. Soon after Linda showed up and she was cheered and happy to be requested. We explained about Margie and Debbie facing forward and Linda was fine with that. Ann was relieved and went off to situate the couple from the bar car. Whew! We had menus on the table and they were not clear to us either. Someone came by with handouts about the Orient-Express PeruRail train and Machu Picchu that contained postcards and we were told that brunch would be served at 10:30am. We were also told that we had to return to our same seats on our return trip. That meant we had about an hour to just check out the views and the train. The train is very luxurious and impressive. There was an engine followed by a kitchen car, then our dining car and then 3 or 4 more dining cars, followed by a bar car and then an observation car at the end with an open-air panoramic balcony. The observation car was very crowded. RSSC did not take the entire train. We made a stop in Ollantaytambo to pick up some additional passengers. They took drink orders and put out butter about 10:30am, but brunch was not served until after 11am. They just started bringing out courses. The menu: Olive corn tamale, tree and pear tomatoes salsa; Fine herbes omelette, crayfish; minute roast of alpaca loin, elderberry compote. Surprisingly, everyone agreed that the alpaca was the best thing on the plate! Next course was Canneloni of spinach of quinoa and salmon trout; creamy tomato and blue chees sauce. There 2 of these on each plate and a little went a long way. Third course was Cheese cake mousse with chocolate drops, fresh fruits coulis. These people have a thing about mousses! The wines were Tacama Blanco de Blancos and Tacama Seleccion Especial. The views from the train were amazing. We passed small villages, farm fields and animals, rivers, streams, curves and swerves, tunnels and valleys and mountains. It was downhill mostly. We rode for a long time through the Sacred Valley and alongside the Urubamba River. It was a churning chocolate milkshake of a river most of the time. This river joins other rivers to eventually become the Amazon and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Isn't that amazing? We will see this water again on the other side of a continent. Wonder whether we or the water will arrive first at the mouth of the Amazon? Near Cusco there was the most amazing set of train switchbacks. Amazing, from an engineering viewpoint. We went to the end of the tracks, then we backed onto another set of tracks (the whole train mind you!) then we went forward again on yet another set of tracks. This was because the curves were too tight to take by just forward motion. Not sure if that captures the complexity or the ingenuity of the thing, but it would probably take an aerial photograph to really portray it. It seemed that was our lowest altitude and then we climbed back up to Aguas Calientes, the end of the tracks.
We arrived at Aguas Calientes about 12:40pm and walked through the most amazing market to get to the shuttle buses for Machu Picchu. It was very cold when we left Cusco at the higher altitude. Machu Picchu is on the Amazon, or rain forest side of the Andes, and is hotter and more humid. So, while it was around 50F in Cusco when we left and returned. It was about 80F and cloudy and rainy as we traveled to Aguas Calientes. Rain was visible from the train but it did not interfere with our views. When we arrived in Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu, it was apparent that it had been raining heavy very recently. But, we had a warm afternoon with just some light misting rain for our visit. It was misting heavily as sunset approached and we were all thoroughly soaked through by the time we got down. We had just about perfect weather for our short visit to Machu Picchu. We hope the travel gods continue to smile on us!
Entering Machu Picchu itself. The bus ride up from the train station was exhilirating! We think that the difference in elevation from the the train station at river level in Aguas Calientes to the guardhouse at Machu Picchu was about 2000 feet. Incredibly, you could still hear the roar of the river all the way at the top! So, we had to walk from the Sanctuary Lodge at 1:10pm, at the entrance to the protected site, up and down and back to the Lodge for tea at 3:45. The train departed back to Cusco at 5:45pm. We were told that if we left the Lodge early that we could have some time to shop in Aguas Calientes. There was a bit of a rebellion after tea when they wanted to bus us at 4:45pm and we were ready to start leaving at 4:15pm. We wound up busing back about 4:30 and had about a half hour to shop at the Aguas Calientes market. At Machu Picchu, we saw the Sun Gate across the valley, we saw the tallest peak, Machu Picchu, overlooking the village, we saw the smaller, closer, sharper peak of Huayna Pichu, we saw the Royal Tomb, the Sacred Plaza, the Temple of the Three Windows, House of the High Priest, the sundial and the highest point of the village, the Guardhouse. It was all just absolutely breathtaking, awe-inspiring, incredible, unbelievable... there are not enough adjectives. It is one of those places that you have to visit in person to begin to comprehend the importance of this place on the planet, of which everyone recognizes pictures. It was starting to get dark and the mist was thickening and we all knew our deadline to be at the Lodge was rapidly approaching and we had a long way to go down to get there. So, everyone sucked it up and soldiered through the last 5 minutes of steep and twisting stairs to the top and the money shot for our photos in front of Huayna Picchu with the village very far below. Margie was the last one to the top and the first one to the bottom. Go figure!
Dinner was served onboard. The menu was: Pisco Sour, Amuse bouche (was we were told was a quinoa mousse!?) that no one liked - Kiwicha flour pancake, alpaca ham mousse, celery apple salad, beetroot horseradish sauce - Tomato cream soup with green sauce toast (which idea terrified everyone with the train lurching, but it was a shallow soup in a big deep bowl!) - then everyone had either fish or beef - "La Cabana" beef tenderloin medallion, mushrooms sauce, potato budding, vegetable straw - Salmon trout fillet, asparagus, corn and sweet potato ragout, light lemon sauce, achiote oil - Pecan nut brownie, banana ice cream, caramel butterscotch sauce. The wines were Tacama Blanco de Blancos and Tacama Seleccion Especial. We arrived at Poroy Station at 9:10pm and were back at the hotel by 10pm. Already exhausted and feeling the altitude again, we all fell into bed. We had 5am wakeup calls again tomorrow and back on the buses at 6:15am!
The UglyDebbie (and we later learned a number of other people) had gotten ahold of something that gave them diarrhea. So, an early and unpleasant start to the day. We had bags out in the hall at 5:15am and were loading buses by 6:15am. We had a 7:45am flight out of Cusco to Lima. After clearing security and going to Gate 3 we were told to just find seats because our plane had not left Lima yet. It seems like Lima Tours really dropped the ball here. Someone should have checked if the flight was on time before we had gotten all the way through security at the airport! We watched the A&K group from yesterday arrive 2 hours later and walk right onto their LAN flight. An hour or so later, we watched Larry Wheeler and his grouprepeat that. In all, we watched about 6 LAN flights arrive and leave on schedule while we waited 4 hours for our Star Peru flight to show up. This meant that we skipped the morning touring Lima and our lunch at the Casa Aliaga. But, here comes the really ugly part. We got sandwiches and cake on the flight as before and the promise of a boxed lunch on the bus during the 3.5 hour ride directly to the ship because the Captain could not delay departure after 5pm. We got to Lima airport about noon, we were instructed to use the restrooms for the last time and they would claim our luggage. (Yikes, 3.5 hours before the next toilet!) We were on the buses at about 12:30. About 1:30pm we got our boxed lunches. Now, it reaches ugliness. Remember we had a catered lunch event at an historic mansion? Not. The lunches were boxed up to us and delivered to the buses as we were let out for about a minute to take photos at Lovers Park. As we lurched through city traffic following the Malecon along the coast, we were brought 3 styrofoam boxes, a loose roll, a wet wipe, a bottle of water and a paper napkin rolled around a set of plastic utensils. There were no tray tables on the bus. The menu was: aspargus under crab salad - beef with potatoes, carrots and broccoli - mango mousse. Everything was the wrong temperature. All the hot food was cold by now and all the cold food was hot. How are you supposed to juggle 3 boxes on your lap and eat fork food on a moving bus? Plus, we had just finished the airline lunch! Guess they couldn't haul that boxed up lunch/leftovers to us and hour away! Then there was the stink! Our bus stopped about an hour out of Lima and moved the boxes from the back of the bus and under the bus with our luggage. The crab salad leaked a putrid path the length of the bus with a big pool up front. The guide came through with a dry mop. Yuck! (Remember that many of us were already suffering digestive difficulties!) So, we rode on and after about 4 hours we got a quick surprise potty-only stop. It turned out that it was because Ann had insisted that the local guide/driver offload their stinking boxes and they apparently did not think to just put them with the luggage. We were all pretty disappointed to miss the tour of Lima. We had especially looked forward to the visit to the Casa Aliago. We did not arrive back to the ship until about 5:30pm. The ship sailed immediately. It had been docked within the Paracas National Reserve. We had to drive through the Paracasand around the bay for almost a half hour from our first view of the ship until the time we reached it. Our guide, Victor, did not say a word about Pisco, or the earthquake devastation or tell us about Paracas. He pointed out every public school and hospital for miles, but nothing that we as tourists would have found interesting. For example, at some point after driving for hours through brown desert on the left and the sea on the right, we entered a green valley. In the distance to the left of the bus was what looked like a miniature Alhambra. The question was hollered up to Victor, what is that. He got on the microphone and said something like this, Excuse me on the right is a farm. It is a really big farm because there has always been some river here in this valley. This house was built over 250 years ago. This family that built the house owned all this valley at one time. The king of Spain gave it to them and they built this house and farmed and still do. The family was black people from Spain. This was absolutely fascinating for anyone with any kind of historic perspective or who has ever visited the Alhambra and knows something about the Moors and Moorish architecture, yet Victor was mute until pressed. Anyway, it was a really bad day and the low point of the trip so far. Lets hope this is as bad as it ever gets.
Machu Picchu - photos