Posts Tagged ‘Machu Picchu’

Perhaps appropriately, it is not as easy as you would think to get to Machu Picchu.  This is good for a couple of reasons – keeps crowds down (a little), brings in money to keep things nice there, and makes it feel like a real adventure when you finally make it.  We did plenty of research about getting to the site.  Turns out, it is not accessible by road alone.  You basically have three choices about how to get there and then within those choices are lots of variations.  The main methods are:  hike, take a long bus ride and a short train ride and a short bus ride, or take a shortish bus or taxi ride, medium length train ride and a short bus ride.  We went for the last option since it is generally considered the easiest and the safest.

We set off the day after we got back from the jungle and headed for a minivan taxi thing.  They leave as they fill up and take you to Ollyantaytambo, a town about half of the way to Machu Picchu where you can get the train the rest of the way.  We met a new friend in the van, a really nice guy from Helsinki, and had lunch together in Ollyantaytambo before catching the train.  As we were walking from lunch to the train I got a horrible churning in my stomach and just knew that I was getting sick.  Not convenient considering we had a 1.5 hour train ride ahead of us and were going somewhere fairly remote and not accessible by road!

Well, I survived the train ride.  The train itself was really nice, leather seats, windows in the roof so you could see the views, snack served.  And the ride was scenic.  Really beautiful in fact.

Peru Rail Train to Machu Picchu

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