Having a day trip before our Inca Trail trip was not ideal for us, we wanted to have today off, relax, check that everything was packed as it should be and so on. On the other hand today's trip was more of a "lean back and enjoy".
Being picked up at the hostel at 8:30 our tour company decided to show up 8:15 while we were still having breakfast. Malene told them to wait five minutes for us to get ready but they left and didn't return until 9 AM. Good start. Once inside our minibus our guide was not present so the driver was going around town to find him and a few other guests. This included three times around the Plaza de San Fransisco much to our entertainment,
Eventually our guide was on-board and we headed out of town - and our guide went into auto-play. He had probably done the trip 1000 times before and his Spanish was fast and his English was mumbled and even faster. And his phone kept ringing but he was so much into the script that he just resumed his speech every time he hung up. It turned out we were missing another guest so we waited for him for a while and then he got dropped off by a taxi.
First stop on the Sacred Valley trip - souvenir supermarket. Somewhere along the road we stopped at a parking lot and somebody had put up at place with 60-80 stalls each of them selling the same kind of souvenirs. Not really our favorite. We spent 20 minutes there trying various hats and laughing a bit at the whole morning.
We left for Pisac, our driver negotiating the dense traffic of tourist buses on the narrow road leading up to the ruins until we came to the usual South American grid lock of tourist buses all wanting to go first. Our guide pulled out his guide flag and told us to be back at the bus at 12 - which meant an hour at the site, which is less than half of what we could have used. This was our first meeting with real ruins and there are plenty at Pisac, buildings, terraces, foot paths - a nice site to explore if it wasn't for us having to hurry and our guide trying to get his speech done. At least we didn't have to listen to him. He was useless.
Back at the bus at 12 we had managed to walk the site, see some of the great views and negotiate the crowds of other tourists. Not really getting any wiser on the history of the site or why it was important to the Inca's. There was no need to ask our guide - he was already in the process of getting everybody on board the bus including a guy selling some local anise-liquor. He entertained us about the wonderful drink we could buy. Could this get any worse? Yes, because just when we entered Pisac we had our next stop - a silver smith selling "original" jewellery and silverware. We wanted to stay outside in the rain rather than having to go in and see the endless rows of the same stuff you can buy in Cusco, Copenhagen or anywhere else.
Once on the bus again we headed towards the town of Ollantaytambo stopping short of the town itself to have lunch. On the way out of the bus we realised we hand spent 4 hours on transport and useless souvenir shops and 1 hour at the Pisac Inca site. Not a good ratio. Mikkel made a casual joke about this trip now only missing the live band with the guys with the sombreros. They weren't at the lunch place but instead we had them playing pan flute. The lunch place was constructed to serve buffet for around 250 persons at a time. The food was ok but this all added to us not feeling anything nice about the trip.
One last joke from Mikkel at the lunch about being able to buy the pan-flute music cd was followed up by..... yes, when the music stopped the guy from the band walked around the restaurant offering a - yes - cd and asking for tips. Could this get any worse?
We finally headed to the temple complex at Ollantaytambo. Getting there included negotiating the rows of women selling souvenirs. Our guide took us to the top of the temple site, shouted something about the sun, different animals and faces you could see on the surrounding mountains and then we started making jokes about the many, many animals we also could see with some of the other participants on the trip who were just about as frustrated as us. Our guide went on taking about the temple and its construction but it was impossible to hear or see anything but a huge crowd of other groups of tourists heading around the site.
We left, boarded the bus and headed towards the last stop of the day - the Colonial church in the town of Chinchero. We got there just before the sun set and had around 15 minutes at the church not being allowed to take pictures of the beautiful interior which included painted ceilings and walls. Then we spent about an hour heading back to Cusco being dropped off at Plaza de San Francisco. Nobody felt the need to tip the guide. We said goodbye to the guys from our hostel before heading out in town.
This was the worst trip so far in 7 months. It was just as bad as our mandatory marble-city-sightseeing in Turkmenistan except that the trip there took place in a country ruled by a dictator and a secret police. This was just waste of time.
For dinner we found just the right place - Seledonia's mesa. A family place where it felt like being home - at somebody's dinner table. The service was a bit on the slow side but we knew that from the reviews we've read. On the other hand this gave us good time to share travel experiences with a Dutch couple we shared our table with. Best quinoa salad on the trip so far. And the rest of the food as well.
One last thought on the day trip to disaster and back - do not do it. We made the mistake. It is easy to get around, rent a motorbike and go to the sites on your own. They are not crowded in the morning or in the late afternoon. Stay in Ollantaytambo town and spend a day at the ruins. There is plenty to see and experience there.
Heading home and doing the last checks of all our stuff before getting to bed a little bit too late. But we're ready for the Inca Trail tomorrow morning. Bring it on.
Being picked up at the hostel at 8:30 our tour company decided to show up 8:15 while we were still having breakfast. Malene told them to wait five minutes for us to get ready but they left and didn't return until 9 AM. Good start. Once inside our minibus our guide was not present so the driver was going around town to find him and a few other guests. This included three times around the Plaza de San Fransisco much to our entertainment,
Eventually our guide was on-board and we headed out of town - and our guide went into auto-play. He had probably done the trip 1000 times before and his Spanish was fast and his English was mumbled and even faster. And his phone kept ringing but he was so much into the script that he just resumed his speech every time he hung up. It turned out we were missing another guest so we waited for him for a while and then he got dropped off by a taxi.
First stop on the Sacred Valley trip - souvenir supermarket. Somewhere along the road we stopped at a parking lot and somebody had put up at place with 60-80 stalls each of them selling the same kind of souvenirs. Not really our favorite. We spent 20 minutes there trying various hats and laughing a bit at the whole morning.
We left for Pisac, our driver negotiating the dense traffic of tourist buses on the narrow road leading up to the ruins until we came to the usual South American grid lock of tourist buses all wanting to go first. Our guide pulled out his guide flag and told us to be back at the bus at 12 - which meant an hour at the site, which is less than half of what we could have used. This was our first meeting with real ruins and there are plenty at Pisac, buildings, terraces, foot paths - a nice site to explore if it wasn't for us having to hurry and our guide trying to get his speech done. At least we didn't have to listen to him. He was useless.
Back at the bus at 12 we had managed to walk the site, see some of the great views and negotiate the crowds of other tourists. Not really getting any wiser on the history of the site or why it was important to the Inca's. There was no need to ask our guide - he was already in the process of getting everybody on board the bus including a guy selling some local anise-liquor. He entertained us about the wonderful drink we could buy. Could this get any worse? Yes, because just when we entered Pisac we had our next stop - a silver smith selling "original" jewellery and silverware. We wanted to stay outside in the rain rather than having to go in and see the endless rows of the same stuff you can buy in Cusco, Copenhagen or anywhere else.
Once on the bus again we headed towards the town of Ollantaytambo stopping short of the town itself to have lunch. On the way out of the bus we realised we hand spent 4 hours on transport and useless souvenir shops and 1 hour at the Pisac Inca site. Not a good ratio. Mikkel made a casual joke about this trip now only missing the live band with the guys with the sombreros. They weren't at the lunch place but instead we had them playing pan flute. The lunch place was constructed to serve buffet for around 250 persons at a time. The food was ok but this all added to us not feeling anything nice about the trip.
One last joke from Mikkel at the lunch about being able to buy the pan-flute music cd was followed up by..... yes, when the music stopped the guy from the band walked around the restaurant offering a - yes - cd and asking for tips. Could this get any worse?
We finally headed to the temple complex at Ollantaytambo. Getting there included negotiating the rows of women selling souvenirs. Our guide took us to the top of the temple site, shouted something about the sun, different animals and faces you could see on the surrounding mountains and then we started making jokes about the many, many animals we also could see with some of the other participants on the trip who were just about as frustrated as us. Our guide went on taking about the temple and its construction but it was impossible to hear or see anything but a huge crowd of other groups of tourists heading around the site.
We left, boarded the bus and headed towards the last stop of the day - the Colonial church in the town of Chinchero. We got there just before the sun set and had around 15 minutes at the church not being allowed to take pictures of the beautiful interior which included painted ceilings and walls. Then we spent about an hour heading back to Cusco being dropped off at Plaza de San Francisco. Nobody felt the need to tip the guide. We said goodbye to the guys from our hostel before heading out in town.
This was the worst trip so far in 7 months. It was just as bad as our mandatory marble-city-sightseeing in Turkmenistan except that the trip there took place in a country ruled by a dictator and a secret police. This was just waste of time.
For dinner we found just the right place - Seledonia's mesa. A family place where it felt like being home - at somebody's dinner table. The service was a bit on the slow side but we knew that from the reviews we've read. On the other hand this gave us good time to share travel experiences with a Dutch couple we shared our table with. Best quinoa salad on the trip so far. And the rest of the food as well.
One last thought on the day trip to disaster and back - do not do it. We made the mistake. It is easy to get around, rent a motorbike and go to the sites on your own. They are not crowded in the morning or in the late afternoon. Stay in Ollantaytambo town and spend a day at the ruins. There is plenty to see and experience there.
Heading home and doing the last checks of all our stuff before getting to bed a little bit too late. But we're ready for the Inca Trail tomorrow morning. Bring it on.
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| First stop - souvenir supermarket |
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| Look for flag #2 |
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| Long line of vehicles waiting at Pisaq |
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| Pisaq terraces |
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| New sales guy in the bus - miracle water |
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| At Ollantaytambo |
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| Happy, informative guide |
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| Long row of asses |
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| Important rock |
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| Inca-ready |
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| Inca-chairs |
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| The convent at Chinchero - and more souvenirs |
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| Beautiful evening at Chinchero |
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| Full moon in Cusco |
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| Some work to be done to get things sorted for the Inca Trail - tomorrow |
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