The Peru Diary Part 4 (Dec 24-25)

The morning of Christmas eve found us boarding a train from Cusco to Machu Picchu. It had been raining, but beginning to clear up. The train traveled through some typically spectacular mountain scenery and in one section went through a series of clever switch-backs to descend into the valley.  Along the way, we saw hikers heading out on the Inca trail.  There are 4- and 2-day versions of the hike and in both cases, you arrive at the Sun gate of Machu Picchu just in time for sunrise. The train brings you to the town of Aguas Calientes after about 4 hours and we walked to our hotel ("Gringo Bills"). It was a nice place and the manager was an American settled in Peru. He ordered lunch for us and gave us suggestions about visiting Machu Picchu (MP).
We had to take a bus to the top and eventually reached there around 2pm. The whole morning (and apparently the previous day as well) had been overcast and rainy and folks had been putting off their visit to the top. However, we were in luck - soon after we reached the site the sun broke out and we had glorious light for our entire stay. A guide was waiting for us and we proceeded to walk around for almost 3 hours (the site closes at 5pm).  The guide was not the greatest (her English was a bit challenged), but she tried hard and we all enjoyed the tour (although the kids were flagging after a while - they are a bit young to appreciate history and archaeology).  MP was a sanctuary of the Incas - built in the mid 1400s and used for about a 100 years - but was never discovered by the Spanish invaders.  As a result, it remains a pristine example of Inca architecture and is designated a World Heritage Site by the UN. It is a beautiful setting - encircled by a deep valley (through which the Urubamba river flows), which is further surrounded by a ring of tall peaks.  To the north and south of the site are the two peaks - "Machu Picchu", or "Old Peak" and "Huayna Picchu" or "Young Peak." The peak that is seen in most MP photos is Huayna Picchu.
In the evening, we ended up in the local 'Govinda' for dinner.  There tended to a 'Govinda' restaurant in almost every city and while they were all vegetarian places, they are not part of a chain and were all quite different. The unifying theme was that they are all run by Peruvian Hare Krishnas. Being Christmas eve, kids were setting off fire crackers in the main square and we could hear them going off well into the night.

Ollantaytambo

The next morning, we took the train back towards Cusco, but got off midway at "Ollanta" or the Sacred Valley.  This is a fertile valley that is still a big producer of Peruvian corn (apparently prized around the world as the best variety of corn there is) and potatoes (they claim to have over 4000 varieties).  Along the journey, a QC-related debate broke out between RD and myself.  RD is always skeptical of anything that is less than hard-nosed (unless it involves Steve Jobs, of course), but this time I had an ally in Vinay, who being a relative new comer to our division was immune to being tagged a homer. At one point Malini went to sit in the row behind us so that she could stretch out a bit and the lady seated there commented to her, "This is the problem with men - they have to argue about everything. Why can't they just agree that they each have different view points and leave it at that?"  She went on to add, "See, even you couldn't take it anymore and had to change places to get away from it." To which Malini responded, "I didn't move because of that - I just wanted some more space." Earlier in the journey, RD had been sitting next to this lady and had seemingly struck up a good conversation.  At one point though, he came to our row and squeezed in with us and later on admitted that he had been driven away by the strong views expressed by her.
We had a guide and driver waiting for us at Ollanta station and we proceeded to visit a couple of Inca sites, with a stop for lunch in between.

We also drove through a large Christmas parade that featured lots of costumed groups. The sites we visited had all been decimated by the Spanish, but still retained enough of their original structures for us to get a feel for the place. It was raining in spurts, but overall we all enjoyed ourselves.  The evening found us in Cusco and we checked back into Corihuasi.  Dinner was in the Cusco 'Govinda', which was within walking distance and all of a sudden our trip was coming to an end.  Tomorrow we would head to Lima, which was going to be our final stop.

Cusco Plaza de Aramas, by night