Sometimes everything doesn’t go according to plan. What do you do then? You adapt.

Whether Tricks on Us in Ollantaytambo, Peru

We were supposed to go to Machu Picchu today, by a train from Ollantaytambo via Aguas Calientes. But when we got to the train station in the morning there was a surprise waiting for us. Not a single train would run today to Aguas Calientes! Because of the rains the surface of the river Urubamba had risen to such a high level that it threatens to rise to the railroad already. As a result Peru Rail will only transport tourists away from Aguas Calientes and as a precaution, they do not allow any trains to go there. So here we are in Sacred Valley, so close to Machu Picchu, but yet so far.

We changed our train tickets for the first train leaving for tomorrow morning even though nobody at the office of Peru Rail knew would the trains run tomorrow. So here we are stuck in Ollantaytambo for an extra day, and there’s nothing we can do except wait. And hope hard that we’ll be able to go tomorrow. Because on the day after tomorrow, we have to go back to Cusco to catch our flight back home.

Inca terraces in Ollantaytambo, Peru.

New Travel Plans to Machu Picchu

We ran into an officer of the train company on our way back to town who told us that the trains would probably run tomorrow. She also told that today’s cancellations were just a precaution because of the high level of the river the traveling of the train would be dangerous. This news gave us hope. But what will happen, remains to be seen in the morning.

There have been some heavy rains and landslides in the region on the last couple of days. When we arrived yesterday, there wasn’t even electricity in the whole town because of the power lines had been cut by some landslides. Now there’s at least electricity but for example still no running water in our hotel. Yesterday we had our hotel at half price because of this but today we got only -35% discount (even though nothing had changed in the conditions).

I think we made the right decision to stay and see all the cards until the end. Let’s just hope that we’ll have some luck on our side. We also asked around a bit at the town square would there be any other alternative route to Machu Picchu besides the railway. We got to know that there IS at least one other way by land, but now in the monsoon season, the road will probably be impassable. So it’d be highly risky to try by that way, and therefore we discarded that plan and decided to wait for tomorrow’s train.

We now have an extra day to spend here in Ollantaytambo. We already went to see the Inca ruins yesterday and besides those, there’s not much else to see. The ruins and terraces were great, though! Very narrow paths on the hills of the mountain and unfinished buildings. The ruins were a bit crowded even though we went pretty late in the afternoon. So the photographing was a bit challenging task, but we still managed to get some pretty nice shots. Here are some of them for you to see meanwhile we stay here. Tomorrow morning we’re hoping to leave Ollantaytambo behind us and continue our journey!