Aguas Calientes

Our last morning in Cusco and I woke up SICK!!! It was a rough night. Considering that we ate lunch at the same restaurant we had dinner when Andrew's mother got sick, it was a lesson sadly learned as I was sick for three days with food poisoning. It was awful. There was no way to stay in bed all day, as we had to check out of our hotel, drive through the mountains and make it to the train on time to meet the boys the following morning.

So Olga picked us up and we drove to Chinchero on a private tour in a taxi. Considering that the cabs are so cheap in Peru, I guess it was cheaper for the travel agency to hire us a cab rather than an actual tour bus. We took Penny to the Chinchero market, with different women who showed her how to make all of the dyes for the yarn. We even dressed up in their clothes and took a picture with them!

 

One remarkable thing about this country is that their old women don't have gray hair. All of the natives have dark dark long hair and even the older ladies don't have a single gray hair! They claim it is because of their root that they use as shampoo. Seriously, someone should smuggle it back to North America because they'd make a fortune!

After that, we drove to the salt mines of Maras. This was really neat. Each mine has its own owner, who mines their own pool. Then they sell their salt to the company, who processes it and sells it. There are over 3000 salt pools at this mine. It was really cool.

Then we drove to Moray, which had nice terraces. Unfortunately by this time I'd had enough of the car so I was not game for hiking to the bottom, but it was a nice view from the top.

We stopped at the Alhambra restaurant again in Urubumba, as Penny didn't get to experience it the first time. I don't think I got my money's worth but it was nice that Penny got to enjoy it. They drove us to Ollantaytambo, where we caught the train for some first class service for 1.5 hours to the town of Aguas Calientes. This is known as "Machu Picchu Village", as the buses leave from Aguas Calientes and drive you to Macchu Picchu ruins from their bus terminal.

This village is really tiny, with only one road for cars. The rest is all hotels, restaurants and pedestrian walkways. This is exactly a tourist town!!!! The hotel was situated right beside the train station, so Penny and I both had a terrible sleep, but we were very happy to be up in the forest and so close to Machu Picchu!!!!!!!!!!!!