machu picchu

Upcoming Plans

Australia, Bolivia, Comoros, Ecuador, Egypt, Gabon, Libya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Peru, Senegal, The Gambia, Turkmenistan, United Kingdom 10 Responses »

Jan 152017

So, yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a travel blog. I think after Iceland I was a bit exhausted, and combine that with the fact that October-December are always my busiest months at work it meant I really didn’t have much time for travel – or for writing about it.

If there’s any interest, I can put together blogs on two trips I took in the past few months to Zagreb and Bangkok, but you’re not going to see too much outside of hotels and tons of airplane pics because it was long work days without much time to get out and about. However, if you want to see more Lufthansa First as well as my impressions of the first day of United Polaris service I’ll be happy to put those up.

February is going to be an interesting month. I had originally planned to stay closer to home and enjoy the car I make payments on but never seem to drive and take a long roadtrip through the Southern United States to visit four of the eight states I haven’t been to.

However, travel has a way of pulling you back in, and so I started looking at what I could use some of my miles for…and managed to piece together a crazy 17 day round the world with stops in some of my favourite cities: Hong Kong, Bangkok, Cape Town, Paris….oh, and it would involve first class travel on ANA longhaul, Thai on the A380, Qatar on the A380, Emirates on the A380, and yes, more Lufthansa first. It’s pretty hard to say no to, even though I should be a bit fiscally responsible…time will tell!

I recently did an interview for another website which will be up shortly, and I’ll link to it when it’s live. As part of it, I was asked to pick some of my favourite travel photos of myself, which was fun going back through memories. So, my favourite are below. Promise I’ll write more regularly again!

Top of Huayna Picchu near Machu Picchu, Peru

Crossing the river from Rosso, Senegal to Rosso, Mauritania:

Jumerah, The Gambia

New Years Eve stranded in Gabon, due to a coup in Democratic Republic of Congo:

Darvaza Crater, Turkmenistan

Koala cuddling in Brisbane, Australia:

Cuzco, Peru:

Hanging out with the Wrestling Cholitas in La Paz, Bolivia:

On the equator in where else, Ecuador:

Waiting for the tube in London, UK:

Friendly lemurs in Madagascar:

Inland lake in Comoros:

Pyramids of Giza, Egypt:

Leptis Magna, Libya:

Attractions, Peru, Peru 2013 5 Responses »

Mar 212013

By the time we’d grabbed a small snack, the drizzle had turned into a steady light rain…not a good sign for our afternoon at Machu Picchu. Let me back up here and talk about tickets a bit. You can in theory buy tickets from the government website, but when we went the website’s payment portal was down for two straight week so we had no way to get them in advance except through our hotel. The hotel arranged them for us by credit card, and we were able to pick them up along with bus tickets when we checked in. There was approximately a $10-15 surcharge per ticket for this service, but it definitely beat being caught out in the rain with no ticket when we’d gone that far!

We took the bus up the very very windy road to the top of Machu Picchu, and the steady rain continued. It was actually pretty miserable, but we did manage to walk around for about 45 minutes until the rain let up a bit. A few views from the very top of the site, looking down over the valley:

Touring around Aguas Calientes, and the SUMAQ hotel

hotels, Peru, Peru 2013, Restaurants No Responses »

Mar 152013

We were met at the Aguas Calientes railway station by the SUMAQ hotel porter, who put our bags in their cart and then…wheeled them to the hotel. We didn’t know there were no cars in town, so everywhere you went was on foot. It was no big deal, since the hotel was only a five minute walk, it was just funny watching them wheel the giant cart of bags to the hotel. Most of the other people on our train were at the same hotel, but were headed straight up to Machu Picchu so didn’t walk to the hotel with us. First, a few thoughts from our two days at the hotel, and then a little review of Aguas Calientes itself.

SUMAQ Hotel, Aguas Calientes

Room:

We’d reserved the basic standard room, and it was perfectly fine. The beds were very comfortable, there were more pillows than I had a clue what to do with (seriously, there were 6 pillows on each bed!) and the temperature was decent. There was no climate control, so the room tended to be slightly on the warm side, but not enough to every really be a problem. Bathroom was well-stocked with decent eco-friendly amenities, and considering this was a small town it was a very nice room. Some pics of the room, with the many-pillowed bed:

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Cuzco to Aguas Calientes on the Vistadome train

Peru, Peru 2013, trains No Responses »

Mar 142013

We purchased our tickets from Cuzco to Aguas Calientes (the town at the foot of the mountain Machu Picchu sits on) about three weeks in advance on the PeruRail website, which was quite easy and straightforward, although knowing which train you want takes a bit of research. There were three options:

1) The “Hiram Bingham” train – a super luxury train that (as far as we could tell) only had the advantage that it served you a gourmet meal on the way. Price was around $300-350 return.

2) The “Vistadome” train (which we took) that was said to be comfortable with great viewing. About $75-100 return. Reviewed below.

3) A local commuter train, which if I remember right was like $50 return, but was said to be quite slow (at least an extra hour) and unreliable. Everything I read in advance said it was well worth paying the small amount extra for the Vistadome.

It wasn’t completely clear that we needed to print the tickets or anything, so the day before the train when we arrived in Cuzco we went to the PeruRail office (easy to find on the Plaza de las Armas) to see what the story was.

It was a good thing we went, because we found out not only that we needed a printout, but that heavy rains had washed out part of the track from Cuzco, so the first roughly half of the journey would be replaced by a bus. The only upside is that the bus would leave from a station in downtown Cuzco, only a 5 minute taxi ride, instead of the normal train station well outside Cuzco maybe a 30 minute taxi ride away. Small miracles I guess?

The busses seated around 25-30 people, but for some reason when we got on the bus there were only 6 of us total. On the way back, however, when the train unloaded straight to the busses our bus was full. Either way, it was a bit over an hour ride and decently comfortable. There wasn’t a ton of legroom, but there was enough that we didn’t feel squashed.

One important note, you are only allowed one small carry-on on the train, no more than 5kg in weight. We never saw anyone checking them, but this is because basically there’s nowhere to put any luggage. Lots of people are on daytrips so it’s not a big deal, but if you’re planning on an overnight stay (or two nights like we were) this could be a bit inconvenient.

On the way to Aguas Calientes and back the train was almost completely full. They seem to add cars as needed – on the way there there was only one car, but on the way back there were six or seven. This ensures most of them are full, if not almost full. Still, for the barely 90 minute journey it was plenty comfortable. A few fews from the train on the way to Aguas Calientes: