ADVENTURE OF THE LOCAL TRAIN TO Machu Picchu

The STORY of our first visit to Machu Picchu, late 1978. Since childhood and throughout my college years, the love of history was a big part of my life. I was a voracious reader of historical novels which continued thru life until my later years. I had only my imagination, to fill out the pictures in my mind, of the sights that I read about, but did not have the opportunity to see firsthand. This all changed one day. Bubbaloo announced that we were heading off to see a site, in Peru, named Machu Picchu. This as part of our delayed honeymoon. The memory of this epic visit is framed in my mind to this day!

It all started in Cusco, Peru (capital of the Inca) on a sunny spring day. We boarded the “local” train for the 4 hour ride to Machu Picchu. The train was full of locals, I mean packed like a Japanese commuter train. It stopped at all the local villages along the way. People would get off and a new group would get on. Everyone carrying their goods for the market. These included baskets of vegetables, crates of chickens, bundles of homemade clothes and ponchos, the occasional goat, and totes of hot food for sale to the passengers.

The local travellers and vendors were all dressed in the bright colours of the Peruvian Andes. This included the inevitable woven straw hats worn by everyone. There was much jostling in the aisles as people moved up and down the train. The atmosphere was electric with loud, good natured banter and the heady aroma of Andean food, warm bodies and animals. It was all good fun and there was a carnival like mood in the train.

We had paid for seats, however I spent most of the trip with a large female Peruvian butt in my face. It belonged to a local. She had no place else to sit except for my shoulder. This placed her well clothed and colourful knitted butt in my face. Occasionally she would look down on me and give out a hearty laugh. I believe she enjoyed the ride, thoroughly. She may have thought I was the descendant of a Spanish Conquistador. And, because of that, she was exacting a little Inca butt revenge.

We had left for Machu Picchu very early in the morning so had to buy our breakfast from the food vendors on the train. I have never, before or since, eaten anything like this meal. It consisted of choclo ( big ol corn on the cob) with a slab of fresh white cheese to accompany it. Followed by a couple of huge pieces of chicharron (slow cooked and crispy pork chunks) with a rocoto sauce so hot it could peel paint off the walls, and then a big Andean potato with chopped onions in a thick yellow Huancayina sauce as hot as hell. All this washed down with a glass of the local hooch “chicha”.

This a drink of fermented yellow corn. The corn was chewed by a group of local women in a social circle. This was then spit into a bucket where it was left to ferment with the saliva juices. It was then boiled, left to cool in the Andes and served from one glass shared between all of the customers. Delicious! To die for! Now for those of a weaker stomach this was not a meal to have at eight in the morning. It could go through those, of weaker constitution like “crap thru a goose” cleaning out everything on the way through and cauterizing you as it passed. We called it the Inca Two Step or Inca Revenge.

Ok we finally arrived at the base of Machu Picchu in a place called Aquas Calientes (Hot Waters or probably Hot Springs). At this point in time there was nothing there except a train station. Today it is a full sized, already aged, tourist city with all of the amenities. After leaving the train we boarded a bus for the ascent to Machu Picchu. From this place, gazing up the mountain thru the jungle, not one glimpse of Machu Picchu was to be had. Nor, was there any indication of anything existing on that mountain. I knew a little of Machu Picchu from what I had read, and what the family had told me, but at this point I was unimpressed. We boarded the bus and wound our way to the top.

The road was a 100 percent switchback and must have had 20 or more, 270 degree turns between the rail station and the top. At the top there was nothing only a parking lot and again no sight of any ruins or indication that anyone had ever been there! We were basically on the top of a mountain in the thick Amazon Jungle without the evidence of any previous visitors. Not an Inca to be seen! Today there is an, already old, 4 star hotel on the site we were standing on. At that time nothing. Now I was really under impressed and was starting to question why my guide had brought me there.

We passed thru a small gate and paid our $1.00 entry fee (now about $100.00). Around an outcropping of rock we went AND it was as if someone had kicked me in the stomach. My knees went weak, my head felt light and I grabbed ol Bubbaloo for support. In front of me and to my complete astonishment and amazement lay a whole mountain covered in the most magnificent ruins imaginable! OMG I came close to falling over. There was a stone bench there and I collapsed onto it.

I was not alone. Now, everyone else around us did exactly the same thing and quickly found a place to sit. From peering into the jungle and seeing nothing, to having this magnificent sight laid out in front of me, was only a matter of a few steps, around a rock outcropping. No wonder the Spanish never found it. I was a few steps away and never had any indication that it existed. Each and every time we have visited this place since then I always sit on this bench to reflect and marvel at this sight. It is etched into my mind forever.