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Our first stop, if you don’t count stopping in Cusco to prepay for train tickets to Machu Picchu, will be in the Sacred Valley town of Ollantaytambo.   We have reservations at the Hostal Sauce.  Yeah, strange name.  It certainly isn’t cheap by Peruvian standards, but it includes a buffet breakfast, and they’ll transport us to and from the train/bus stations.  That’s important on the day we go to Machu Picchu, because our train leaves the Ollantaytambo station at 6 a.m.  The place looks nice, they have internet access and they said they could arrange for a driver/guide for us to see the Sacred Valley.  And our room supposedly has a killer view (everyplace in the Sacred Valley probably has a killer view).  I’ve read good reviews about them, but you know how that is.  I also read good review about Gringo Bill’s in Aguas Calientes (where we have reservations), but the reviews that I’ve been reading about Bill’s lately have been a little less than glowing (construction, etc).  We’ll see.  I’m in the process now of verifying all of our reservations.  I have confirmation numbers, but you never know.  And this is a part of the world that fills up fast.  Speaking of confirming, it’s a MUST here, that when you’re leaving Cusco or Peru in general, that you confirm your flight out at least 24 hours in advance.  The forums are full of accounts of people who had tickets, but didn’t confirm and had to spend another night in (a full) Aguas Calientes.  There are no night flights in or out of Cusco.  Too dangerous.  And the airport closes down at night.

Anyway, we’ll get to Ollantaytambo on the 12th, probably before noon, and spend the rest of the day, and all of the following day leisurely touring the Sacred Valley.

At 6 a.m. on the 14th, we board Peru Rail’s “”backpacker express” for Machu Picchu.  There is a more elegant train, the “Hiram Bingham”, but it’s also much more expensive.  I’d really like to take the Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu and stay at the Sanctuary Lodge for 2 nights, but I can’t see spending over $1000 MORE just for the two nights.  I work for a living.  And if you’ve been reading our travel blogs, then you know I’m … cheap.    Well, yes and no.  I could find much cheaper rooms than Hostal Sauce and Gringo Bill’s, but since we’re not paying anything for the flights, and since the altitude is already going to present a challenge, we want to be comfortable.  My usual philosophy is that all we need is a safe and clean place to sleep, and we usually do well in that category.  But this time we’re taking the middle way and paying a little  more per night and then taking the backpacker train.  I just learned that the our train back no longer goes all the way to Cusco but ends in Poroy, about a 20 minute taxi ride from Cusco.  For “security” reasons.  Is it cheaper? No. Do we get reimbursed for the taxi? No.  Things that make you say hmmmm.

In Aguas Calientes, which is the town just below Machu Picchu, we’ll be staying at Gringo Bill’s.  Machu Picchu is even lower than Ollantaytambo, so that should serve us well as far as the effects of elevation go.  We’ll want to cover as much as the site as we can, and there are a lot of steps and just general ups and down.  The Machu Picchu park fee is $20 for one day and $30 for tw0.  We want to do two days.   For one thing, you never know what the weather is going to be like.  We wouldn’t want to go all that way and get rained out on our only day there.  Also, I just think it’s going to be such a beautiful place that we’ll want to soak up as much of it as possible.  I hear about people going to Machu Picchu with their tour, spending a couple of hours there and they’re gone.  It just doesn’t seem like enough.  Maybe after a couple of days in the Sacred Valley it will be, but I don’t think so.

Then we go to Cusco, the highest elevation on our trip.  By then, though, we will have been at over 8000 feet for about 5 days, so it should be much easier for us to acclimate.  We’ll be staying at the Hostal Marani.  Cusco looks like an interesting place.   We had originally intended to attend a Spanish immersion school in Cusco, but we were going to be moving around so much that we decided against it.  I guess we’ll do our immersion in Mexico again this coming winter.

Anyway, that’s our itinerary.  Hope you can follow the blog when the time comes (I hope we’ll have internet access while we’re there).

By the way, our average hotel bill should be around $75 per night.  And our train tickets, from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu and then from Machu Picchu to Cusco, are $209 for the two of us.   Ollantaytambo is about 1/2 way between Cusco and Machu Picchu.  Here’s a map.

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