Trip to Peru Miniseries: Day 2 - Aguas Calientes

I decided to separate into a post for each day. You can find more post here for Day 1, Day 3, and Day 4.

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The next day started pretty early as I had to take a taxi (again) to the nearby town to catch the train to Machu Picchu. This is a disadvantage for people who travel alone as you have to pay for a taxi by yourself and public transportation is not really an option here. The hostel called the taxi for me and he sent me to the train station about an hour before the departure. I was early. I also managed to talk to the driver to set up the time for him to pick me up on the way back the next day. The train that I took was from PeruRail which is about $150 for a round trip. It is not cheap by any standard, but the cheapest option is to take a van and a bit of hiking (several hours), which I don't really want to do. Most of the seats in the train are in a pair of 4 with the table in the middle. I was alone so I will definitely have to join some groups of people on this journey. Luckily, they were the nicest people that I have ever met during my time of travel. They are the 3 siblings (I think) from Warsaw, Poland. We didn't talk much at the beginning, but because the train took 3 hours to get to Aguas Calientes, which is the town near Machu Picchu, we ended up talking to each other for the last hour of the journey. Having been travel alone for the past few days, having a good conversation with people who shared the same experience was such a great break from being alone.

On the trail near the train track to the Waterfall (Cataratas)

Aguas Calientes is a small town near Machu Picchu, which the main industry is tourism to support people who come to Machu Picchu. I arrived at Aguas Calientes at 10am and did not plant to go up to Machu Picchu until the next day. Since I didn't really plan what to do that day, I decided to take a walk to the waterfall (Cataratas) even though the walk would take me 1.5hr to get to there and 1.5 hr to get back. About the first half of the walk, I walked along the road, which is usually for buses to Machu Picchu. I walked passed Machu Picchu entrance. The second half of the walk was just a train track. I had to walk along the track and step away as the train ran passed me. The walk was amazing as it was surrounded by tall green mountains and the river. Even though the waterfall is fairly small and might not actually worth the 3 hr I need to get here, the walk is great enough for the journey. I stopped the waterfall just for about 1.5 hr at the waterfall before heading back to the town. I ended up getting back in the hostel (Don Andre) at around 2.30pm. I took a break for about an hour, ate some instant ramen, and looked for the next thing I want to do.

I am at Cataratas (1.5hr hike to the waterfall)

What I found unexpectedly is that there were other waterfalls just the back of the town. I left the hostel to the next waterfalls at around 4.15pm. This hike is much steeper than the previous one. I was also worried that it will get too dark on the way down the mountain, so the hike was not as delightful. (In fact, I was super worried that I will have to walk down in the dark, which is definitely not what I want to do in a foreign country without knowing the language.) The waterfalls were still amazing. If I had to recommend, I would pick these waterfalls instead of the first one as you saw more waterfalls and you are higher up the mountain, except you might miss the view that you get along the path to the first waterfall.

The waterfall near the town (Alcamayo Waterfalls)

I got down to the town at 5.30pm. I was ready for dinner after all day of walking, so I slowly strolled to the town. Surprisingly, I found the 3 siblings from Polan again in the town square. We chatted a little bit, but since they all just had a huge lunch earlier, we decided to just stop for a drink instead. We ended up just picking the bar at the square and got 'pisco sour' for all of us. This is my first time tasting pisco. Can't really tell the difference between this and a typical cocktail, but it was delightful. We had a nice conversation for an hour before I went on my way to find my dinner. I said bye as we separated with the hope that I would meet them again in Machu Picchu. My dinner for that day was a quick one. I found out from the people at the hostel that there was a local market near the square that serves local food for cheap. The food was just 10 sol ($3.1). I went to bed fairly early as I had to catch a 5.30am bus to Machu Picchu, as they recommended you to get there as early as possible to beat all the tourists. I also met two new friends in the same hostel (one from India and one from Brazil who didn't speak English), but we didn't talk that much.

The third day will be the highlight of my entire trip, the journey to Machu Picchu and back!.

Me and my new friends from Poland, having pisco sours in the town