My train didn´t arrive in Aguas Calientes until 1am and I set my alarm for 4:30am to get up and grab the bus to Machu Picchu. When the alarm went off my body gave me a stern talking to. ¨We road a mountain bike 30km yesterday over ungodly terrain and you wanna move after 3 hours of sleep? Yeah, you wish, go back to sleep buster, you ain´t 21 anymore.¨ It looks like I´ll have to push my plans back a day.
It has still been a good day. Aguas Calientes may be completely over run by tourists but all the gringos in the world can´t spoil the look of this place. I´m down in a valley that is probably only a couple hundred meters wide with tree covered mountains on both sides. I tried to do a short hike that was in my Lonely Planet guide but it looks like the flooding they had earlier this year knocked out the wooden ladders. There was a metal cable that I could have climbed up but it also looked like a spectacular way to kill myself.
I still had to hike around quite a bit to find this out and my bum was hurting from all the biking yesterday, so I headed up to the hot springs to soak myself a little bit. The pic shows just how picturesque this valley is. The water wasn´t piping hot, but it was plenty comfortable. After that I headed back down to town and had an AMAZING meal at a very nice restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet. Avocado and mango salad with a slightly spicy dressing; grilled trout with a garlic sauce, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, green beans and tomato; and caramel
crème brûlée for dessert. Yeah, uh huh.
Probably going to make this a very early night as I´m getting up at about 4am to make sure I catch the first bus to Machu Piccu at 5:30am tomorrow morn. Adios!
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