Friday 2 October:

Itinerary: Aguas Calientes to Cuzco. Return to Machu Picchu to explore further. Time to enjoy the offerings of our hotel, including birds and orchids. Late afternoon train trip back to Cuzco. Accommodation in comfortable friendly small hotel in old Cuzco.

2 October

The reader might recall that yesterday's entry concluded with a reference to the ruckus from the 'fiesta'.  My field notes for this day start off with "After night from hell ..." .  But enough already: I was up early to bird around the hotel.  The view of the mist rising in the valley was very pleasant: so was realising we weren't going to have to walk up the mountain.

There were certainly lots of birds around the place.  To begin with the site is densely planted with vegetation (of which more later) but not only had the hotel arranged many hummingbird feeders (poor picture attached) but they also placed bananas in some trees to attract the fruit eating birds such as tanagers (attached terrible image is a Blue-grey Tanager).  I think it was at this point that we managed to spot a female Cock-of-the-Rock, calling in the middle of the accommodation area.  Not as lurid as the males, but still a very nice bird. These activities kept myself and several others well busy until breakfast time.  Even then the birds didn't stop: An Oropendola had built a nest across the river (and railway line) outside the breakfast area and was obliging enough to fly back and forth!  To balance out these excitements I have included an image of the commonest bird (?) in South America - a Rufous-collared Sparrow

At this point the service from the hotel descended a little.  First they gave me a bill for some wine we had consumed the previous night showing the cost of the wine, the propino (aka tip or in this case more like a service charge) and a USD10 donation.  On reading more closely the donation was voluntary, but it was presented in a very misleading fashion, and the price of the wine actually came down to pretty much what was on the menu but it still seemed a rather poor way of going about things.


It then emerged that the person on the desk knew nothing about any arrangement for our baggage to be stored until we got back later in the day.  I managed to find my assertive side (also known as the demon king from Hades) and gave her a fairly firm bit of advice.  According to other members of the group this softened her up nicely for them.  It was just as well I didn't demand to see the Hotel manager, as that was who I was talking to (rather than someone on work experience as I had believed)!  Seeking to be fair, she had endured 2 nights of fiesta rather than 1, so was probably not in the best mental state!  As usual Juan appeared and sorted everything out.

We then headed off in buses up the road to Macchu Pichu: it still seemed quite hairy.  While some stayed in the lower points of the site, the keen walkers followed Juan up to a high point from which we looked down over the whole site for a very interesting talk about the history of the site and the use of many of the buildings that could be seen.  The image is of of a doorway which is the only entrance into the place from the Inca Trail: the door-posts themselves show a much higher quality of workmanship since they had to withstand potential attacks.The most fascinating point for me is that Bingham was actually looking for a mythical lost city of the Incas when he was shown this site, which was totally overgrown.  Thus one of the, if not 'the', most famous archaeological sites in the world was found by serendipity.  After this presentation - which included a whole lotta questions from the audience, including your correspondent, we joined the writhing hordes at the site and did some up close inspecting.

We also spotted some animals: on the left a vicuna (one of many at the site) and to the right a Spiny-tailed Lizard, which saved me from constipation by jumping off the rocks and landing on my foot.

After about a couple of hours we farewelled the site and went to put on some calories at an excellent buffet lunch in the town. All food in Peru is excellent!

The next item was a tour of the orchids in the grounds of the hotel.  While many/most of these have been planted they are all native to the area.  Needless to say myself and a couple of others also kept a weather eye open for birds and were able to spot a Highland mot-mot.  When asked how to tell the difference to the Blue-crowned motmot the hotel guide replied "DNA!".   The orchid tour covered a good array of species, although I suspect the presentation was aimed at folk with far less knowledge of natural history than our group.

We managed a little more birding before wandering down to the station to catch our train back to Ollantytambo.  It appears that since the line was privatised very few trains now go all the way back to Cusco.  The train ride, and subsequent bus trip from Ollantytambo back to Cusco, were done after nightfall, but by the time we got to the bus the moon had risen so it became a very romantic ride back through the mountains.

We found our way to the hotel and despite its rather quaint arrangement of rooms (the place is on about 4 levels linked by steps and pathways) found our rooms and settled in for a good night's kip!  The image to the right was taken the next morning - even in Cusco the moonlight light isn't that bright.

It is becoming almost unnecessary to say so, but itinerary was delivered as usual.