Back on track

I have been dither-dathering about buying our train tickets from Cuzco to Aguascalientes.  There are so many variables!  Railway: Peru Rail or Inca Rail.  Departure point: Cuscso, Ollantaytambo, Urubamba.  Class: Expedition, Vistadome, Voyager, Hiram Bingham.  Departure times: super early, moderately early, kind of early, afternoon, later afternoon, too late, you get the drift.

Ahh, I couldn't decide.  I kept looking at options and then getting distracted by work or homework or social life or The White Queen TV show marathon.  Val was no help.  She just said she trusted me and to buy whatever I thought best.  Hrmmph.

I even used my research as homework but creating a Machu Picchu Pecha Kutcha video.  You can watch it if you have 6:41 minutes to kill.  Don't judge, I got an A on it.

I kept not buying the tickets and not buying the tickets.   And then today, Black Friday deal day, I thought 'hey, I wonder if Peru railroads have sales on Black Friday'?  Guess what, they do!

So, I just bit the bullet, picked Peru Rail and hedged my bets on stations and classes.  We leave Cuzco in the not-too late morning (7:50am which is way better than 5:20am).  The train from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo doesn't run in rainy season so we bus it to Ollantaytambo.  We board the train at 10:30 or so and hit Aguascalientes around noon.  For this one, I bought the cheap tickets, Explorer class.  $38 US

Peru Rail Expedition Class

For our return tickets, we leave Aguascalientes at 10:30am or so.  I sprang for the Vistadome, the next class up with bigger windows. $54 US.  We get off in Ollantaytambo which seems like a nice little town and then we have to figure out how to get back to Cuzco.  I'm sure there are buses.  Or not, whatever, I can only do some much deciding in one day.

Peru Rail Vistadome 

We saved a bunch of money (around 40%) because I couldn't commit for weeks and then boom, it is time.   I had like five minutes before my next appointment so I didn't have time to think about it. This might be why my name is Joanne Cumberland Cumberland on my ticket.  Anyway, it is done.

We have assigned seats.  I tried to find some info on what side of the train they are on or even if they are window seats (on Expedition) but there doesn't seem to be consensus on seating plans.  Apparently, every train has a different configuration so it is a crap shoot.  Oh well, I don't mind leaning over a stranger to take a picture/spot a bird/rest my arm on their head.  I think Vistadome is all windows.  You know you are going to hear all about it eventually.

Next task, plane tickets from Cuzco to Lima.  I need another few days recovery time before I tackle that one.

Here's sa pretty picture of Peru Rail

Machu Picchu tickets and vaccinations

Well, after all of the whining and whinging from my last post, I checked the Machu Picchu site a week later and 2020 tickets were on sale. According to the website, they only sell 100 tickets to Machu Picchu and Mountain (6am entry) per day so I forced Val to pick a day and I bought the tickets. Now we just have to be there at the right day and time.

Here is how full December is! 

Then I had to send in a scan of both of our passports.  Val figures we are just paying someone to steal our identities but I figure if my super-sketchy Uganda tour worked out, this should be fine, it is only moderately-sketchy.

We booked a room in Aguascalientes for the night before our entrance date.  We added the bus option to our entrance tickets which takes up from Aguascalientes to the park entrance  Now we just have to book the train from Cuzco (but not Cuzco because the train doesn't leave from there in the Winter) to the Aguascalientes.  No problem.

Yesterday I went to see the travel nurse at Nova Clinic.  She was her usual efficient self.  I needed several updates.  I got the Pertussis (Whooping Cough) shot.  I was sent home with the oral vaccines for Typhoid and E coli (Dukeral, my poop-based best friend). And prescriptions for antibiotics (* just in case if you know what I'm saying) and altitude pills.  And I got a flu shot at Shoppers Drug Mart on my way home.

There is yellow fever in Peru but not where we are going to be.  Plus, my yellow fever vaccine from 12 years ago, which was supposed to be for 10 years, has been upgraded to lifetime immunity so that's a bonus.

Again the talk about not playing with kittens (which I will probably ignore) and not eating dairy (goat's cheese is out so that is a definite ignore), no street food (that will probably get ignored within the hour after we land in Lima), and no unpeeled fruit - as if!  I might be able to not touch rodent excreta but I really don't think I can make any guarantees.  I didn't dare mention cuy (guinea pig street food!)

There are so many diseases that are transmitted by bug bite.  Bugs that will kill me by various means are out and about at night, during the day, at sunset/sunrise, at low altitudes, high altitudes, in the mountains, on the beach, and in my mud hut with its thatch roof. 

Here is a list ("Other Diseases" is where the bug borne nightmares live):

So, bug spray, lots of bug spray.  Although that's not going to help with the plague.

http://novatravelclinic.com/

Only other update is my mom gave me some hiking boots. They are green.  

Machu Picchu - why do you have to be so complicated?

I think Hiram Bingham had an easier time figuring out how to get into Machu Picchu that I have!

A while ago, I thought I would google some info about entering Machu Picchu.

By the way, if you google 'rabbit hole' and 'machu picchu' 
which pretty much describes my google adventures, 
you get this which isn't even a rabbit, it is a Viscacha

This is the what I have finally patched together over the last few weeks of interneting.

A bazillion people go to Machu Picchu.  Heck, Machu Picchu is why many people even go to Peru.  But good luck getting some info on how to get in to it!  Apparently, those bazillion people have become a problem.  Machu Picchu lasted for centuries in the jungle because basically no one but some farmers knew it was there.  Then Hiram (or some German explorers and then Hiram if you want to take sides in the debate) told the world it existed and then 118 years passed and now I want in, dammit!

In order to limit the number of tourists visiting the site, which is being trampled into nothing due to intragrammers (not me) and non-instagrammers (me) alike, Peru started limiting the number of people who could enter each day and how long they could stay in the park.  Entrance times were 6am and noon and you could only stay in for four hours.  And that everyone would need an official guide while in the park. This change happened in July, 2017 but from what I can tell, it wasn't fully enforced.

Not very inviting but I guess that is the point. 

As I was reading about these changes I discovered that it is very important to match your train tickets (did I mention the train?) and train arrival time to coincide with your park entrance time so you don't waste your four hours with just getting to the front gate.  What I had read at this point was that you should buy your train and entrance tickets up to three months in advance, particularly if you want to climb Huayna Piccu (did I mention Huayna Piccu yet?).

So, I find the Machu Picchu ticket site and discover that you can't buy tickets for 2020 until 2020!  Even if we buy them on January 1st, we don't have three months!  And how are we supposed to match our train tickets to our entrance tickets if we don't know when we can enter!?

This is around where I kind of lost it.  Again, this comes back to my new split tourist personality.  Past me would have not even researched this far ahead if at all, present me is a planner-a-header.  And apparently future me may never get to see Machu Picchu.  So I called Val who told me to calm the f*** down. She said it nicer than that but that was the gist of it.  It will all work out, she said.  So I calmed the f*** down.  That was a couple of weeks ago.

Here's another cute Viscacha to help you calm down. 

Today, I tried again to see what's what.  I found new info and the ticket site has been updated (a bit)

Now there are new, new rules that started in January, 2019.  In 2017 there were two four hour windows, but now he entrance times are staggered every hour starting at 6am.  And on top of that, there are four options for entrance:  Machu Picchu only, MP + Huayna Picchu, MP + the MP mountain or MP + the museum. And if you take one of the packages with a hike, you can stay in longer. MP + Mountain is 8 hours!   

And now the website is saying we can buy our 2020 tickets in mid-December.  We may not buy them until we get to Peru, now that I realize Huayna Piccu involves serious climbing (there is a ladder involved!). And there are only 400 tickets a day and a 6 hour window.  The MP mountain sounds a little less strenuous and there are 800 tickets a day so less competition. Plus the two bonus hours. 

Huayna Picchu vs Machu Picchu Mountain

Oh, for bloody sake, I googled  again and found this.  We will practically be in Cuzco by late January!

The only way to secure the ticket to Machu Picchu 2020 is to wait until mid-December 2019, when the official website allows you to make the purchase. 
    

On many occasions, on that date only the purchase of the Machu Picchu ticket was opened for January. Visitors looking for a ticket for February, March or the coming months; They must wait until mid or late January.

STOP GOOGLING, JOANNE!

After all of that, I don't have it in me to start looking at the train just yet.  I did read that between January and April (rainy season, have I mentioned rainy season yet?), the train doesn't leave from Cuzco.  But that freak out will have to wait for another day.

Viscacha watching the sun rise from Machu Picchu.
That bunny has no worries. Be the bunny.