So I had read online that getting to machu picchu by car I the cheapest way to get there. So I booked a trip and was excited to get there without payingseveral hundred dollars. Markus a german guy at the hostel also decided to go by car. We were told to be outside our hostel at 6am. So we got up early and were outside waiting. 6 came around and no van, 630 came and went as well. At ten to 7 a guy came up and said that we were going to be picked up last at about 730. Very frustrating when you get up 2 hours earlier than have to. This was the first of many things about the trip we booked that wasn’t quite right. One of my favorite things was when Markus went to pick up our tickets the guy was supposed to tell us the specifics of the trip, but he was to busy wathing porn on the computer to do anything more than hand off the tickets.
Back to the van ride, the first few hours were pretty good, I thought the driver was pretty good. I am now convinced our driver was bipolar or something. He would drive normal dare I even say carefully for a while then someone would pass us, and he would slam on the accelerator. This is on mountain roads with lots of switchbacks, it was uncomfortable. Then all of a sudden he would go back to semi safe driving. This happened several times on the 8 hour van ride. I am not sure if he had ever been to the town we were going to as at one intersection we stopped in the middle of the road and he had to make a phone call, he says he wasn’t lost but it sure looked like it. Even worse another tour van stopped behind us and he didn’t seem to know which way either… both of them were out looking for sign on the road to see which one is more travelled. Anyways he did get us there, so I guess mission accomplished!!!

Let me go into the roads a bit. The first two hours or so the road was great, even up and down the big pass the road seemed to be maintained. There are potholes from falling rocks and sometimes the rocks are still there. There are lots of places where the road has been damaged in landslide or the like, and it isn’t fixed it is just marked off and the road goes to one lane for a bit. I can not remember the name of the town we had to stop at for an hour and a half and wait for road construction. From that point to the hydroelectric plant station, the road was crazy!!! Mostly one lane, with huge dropoffs inces away from the tires. I was in the front seat and was looking out my window and in several places I was holding my breath praying we didn’t fall. At one point a little landslide happened. We stopped and a guy ran over and cleared out the big rocks and trees. It didn’t take as long as I thought but it was scary hearing little rocks fall on top of the van as we drove by. There were a few bridges that were very interesting, I would have been concerned to take a bicycle over one of them but our driver didn’t even blink. I guess I am just a pampered American who is used to guard rails and maintained roads. All the construction they are doing will make the road to machu picchu really nice in a few years when they finish.

I know this was a lot of complaining, I mean whats the big deal, we made it alive right??? Well I just wanted to get some of this information out in case someone is thinking about going to machu picchu by car. I wouldn’t recommend it, at least not for some time.

All that being said the scenery is amazing, going through the mountains. We went up into the could line, and were up at 4350 meters in the pass. All the waterfalls and steep topography was very beautiful, it would have been great to take some photos but was not easy to do as the roads and driver make it difficult.

The two meals included were passable food, small set plates at two different restaurants. The hostel was really basicw with really hard beds, but it did have hot water. Nothing in the trip we booked seemed worth it to me.

I really hope tomorrow is better, we are getting up at 330 am so we can start the hike up Machu Picchu early enough to get tickets to Mhana Picchu.

More later…