TRAIN, TRAIN AND MORE TRAINS.

Friday, and just keeping out of the way. Made our way into town and were met with an even bigger protest. Eyes and ears everywhere we keep low to the ground.

Little story. Riot police all lined up looking tough, protesters marching by. A feral dog walks up to the police, cocks his leg up on one of the shields! Massive cheers, the dog is now a hero and is feted with hot dogs, buns etc.

Police, they all run for their shields and the slowest off the mark ends up with dog pee all over his shield, the police and crowd love it. Enemies one minute, friends the next. Strange world.

Make it through the day and keep out of trouble. All the sites are closed though which was a sad loss. But did some shopping in a back street store which was situated in a private court yard. Lovely family, Dad shy, daughter 12, razor sharp, youngest boy not at school yet and so he is the model dressed up in traditional dress to such a point that he disappears into the background of stock.

He is there from 8am opening to whenever they close. Its a hard life on one so little, 3 years, but he is smiley and as his big sister said when he goes to school thats it, all us others had to do it!!

Then the catherdral that night was holding a classical guitar concert by the famous RICARDO. So we go, making a party up from the hotel. Arrive at the hall, free entry, and in we go. Lovely wooden floors, golden walls, brilliant white ceilings supported by grey stone pillars, the stage is set, we take our seats and Christines chair promptly collapses. Up she gets like a startled rabbit with that , it wasnt me look, on her face.

Sorry about punctuation and all that, but this keyboard is something else.

I make the necessary noises, sorry, drunk again, etc.

The hall fills and fills and fills, tourist few. Locals and backpackers mainly. We run out of seats, the locals nip into the cathedral next door and start bringing in the pews, imagine that, and then we all settle down to an hour of bliss. Is nt it strange that children all over the world sit down cross legged, slightly open mouthed and wide eyed, enthralled.

That night and most of the night sirens are sounding but we are safe behind our walls.

Saturday morning. Up at 4.30 for the 6am train. Picked up by a really grumpy guide and down to station. Given tickets for the train and hotel at Aguas Calliente, the base camp for Machu Picchu, and the guide is off. Strange. There are crowds waiting to get on the train as there is a backlog, two days of no coaches, no flights all behind us.

Train tickets are for carriage E seats 22 and 23. Go to train, carriages A B C, thats it!!!!!!!!!

Talk about go to platform nine and three quarters.

No E.

Speak to carriage steward, present our tickets, no these tickets are not valid!!!!! Oh boy.

Now, I rarely loose my temper, normally mean, moody, magnificent, read sulky, but I had to walk away, steaming.

We have had a rough week and made the most of it but now one of the tour highlights is being taken away from us again. Christine sends me away to look at the trains and starts wheeling and dealing. There are a few emergency seats on the train and she gets us in but many are left behind.

She told me she had sold her body to the steward, hence we end up on the roof!

Peru Rail. Just a note, these trains are all really first class, not just the tourist trains but the backpacker trains and the locals, spotlesly clean, bright blue livery, staff really crisp, uniform again. We later went on other trains on other routes and found the same, but they are not always punctual!

Anyways Christine has done it and we are off.

Right!! Grumpy time. This is not all super duper out here you know. We have had a hard week, pretty much stressed at times but stiff upper lip and all that. But it has been a pain, not just the troubles but the inefficiency of the local travel agents has really not helped. At times they could have done better and at other times they were reckless.

Still as they say, The food that burns the mouth is soon forgotten in the stomach.

And another thing, if once more, just once more, one of those poncho wearing, bongo banging, banjo strumming, pipe playing pests comes into a restuarant and ruins my digestion again banging out their version of The Flight of the Condor I will go bananas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still as Christine has said they are the real thing!

On the train, vista dome, we settle down, I check through our paper work, oh no, the hotel ticket we have been given is for the previous day!

This rail journey is really something, switch backing up the mountain side above Cusco then into the sacred valley. This valley is very high, we switch backwards and forwards until we are high above Cusco then start a very slow descent down to MP.

Now, if you can imagine climbing up to Stanley Ghyll on the Ratty railway then multiply it a hundred times you have the idea. Fertile land for miles hence the sacred, it was so important as a food source to the Incas. We run initially alongside a stream that becomes a river that becomes a boiling flood.

Inca ruins that you could just put a roof on and move into. No electric or loos mind you. This is a lovely run into Aguas Calliente the base of MP.

I really did allow the stress of it to get to me. Which really did spoil my ride up and of course Christines.

Stressed, angry, unsure.

Put that aside.

The run in to Calliente is a problem and perhaps underlines the governments point of view about taking over here. This is very much a shanty town, perhaps you could say it has a charm but its still a dump. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site and as you get off the train you are met by your guide, paperwork sorted out then you have to run a gauntlet of street traders. Originally a small covered market was set up here for tourist to browse in but it has run out of control. A feature of the whole town. Unregulated development has turned this once small town with a pleasant square into a bit of a mess. There is work going on here, riverside walks, paved streets, gardens with seating, but it does need to come under some kind of control. Buildings with no roofs, painted plywood facias, plastic sheeting everywhere. Still I have to remember that everything here comes in by train and everything, including rubbish has to go out the same way. To be honest I have no idea how they ever managed to build a railway here anyway.

Still, onto the bus, modern, comfortable, and switchback up and up on a dirt track to the gates of MP.

In we go. After a bad tempered morning I need to settle down and this place does it. As always breathless, but this time both with altitude and the sight before our eyes!

I thought before coming here that weather would be the main problem, it would really need a clear day to make the most of the place. But everyone who has been here told us that there must be cloud. The cloud is so, so, important.It drifts up from below, then down from the mountains around, sometimes the site is partially hidden, then completly. This is what this place is all about.

I have to say that this ruin is not in any way any greater than that of the Nile Valley or Pompei and so on. But what makes this place is the location. Deep deep valleys into the mist and river thousands of feet below. The peaks that rise up above the ruin, sometimes in cloud then out, the sheer mystery of it.I do not really have the words to explain what I have seen. I am sorry but you just have to come here and sit on the rocks and see for yourself!

As we go round the guide does his job but we have sunshine, rain storms, mist, cloud, and that is how it is up here. Wonderous.

We have lunch at the sanctury the only hotel and resturant at the site no picnics are allowed and I must ay it was very good, and return to the site now having it almost to ourselves.

We are offered to climb the opposite peak which gives a panoramic view down onto the site, but.....

The path to this temple at the top is like climbing a ladder, a badly broken and weathered rock staircase some four feet wide, no handrails. Its often down to hands and knees both up and down. No more than four hundred people a day are allowed up to this peak and in the last four years they have had five deaths up here, one heart attack, one struck by lightening, two falls over the sheer drops, and one went up and was never seen again. No doubt he did a Reginald Perrin and is in Australia now!

The place is almost empty. What has happened is that because of the strike that so many companies have re scheduled and as a result after the initial rush there is no one to follow. We have the place to ourselves. We just wander and absorbe the place, finally going down on the last bus to our hotel. Or perhaps not! Finding our hotel the Mattu Picchu Inn we hope the receptionist has rooms she looks at our papers says not valid but finds on a clip board a message that we are due, asitis there is only onw other couple staying. a massive sigh of relief.

Next morning. Do we go back up. We decide not, we feel we have seen all we need and in the best conditions,

and of course it would cost us another seventy pounds to get in!!

What to do.There is a spa here and we went up but it was not encouraging, and we would have hire swim gear. A bit like wearing someone elses underpants.

Christine has read of a very posh hotel just out of town that has its own botanical gardens and bird sanctuary. Off we go, walking along the railway track which runs alongside the river which is now really boiling by, deep, muddy waters.

Into the hotel, too early for lunch so a pleasant coffee on the veranda. We ask to tour the gardens and are made welcome. This area of some five acres is a wonderland, endless humming birds, butterflies, much like dense jungle. Streams running off the rock faces and an endless variety of plant that I could never name. Then back for a civilised lunch which cost no more than being in one of the endless shanty bars in town.

Back on the train, an easy journey back four hours long. The train stewards put on a fashion show, all very pretty, and again, thats just the boys!. People my shape do not get these jobs. But it was distracting.

Just before Cusco some get off at a small station and ride into town, this cost about a pound and saves almost an hour, but what they miss is the switchback ride down. After the first switchback a mini bus drives in front of the train.

Emergency stop, whoa! I have never seen anyone reverse so quick.

Then carriages are put into darkness and there is this fairyland of lights all round the Cusco bowl down to our station.

This has been a long trying day.

Up next day for more trains. But this is the one. We are to travel on the Peruvian Orient Express to the highest railway crossing in the world. Well thats what they say. This is about 14.000 feet.

From the word go its upwards, on and on. There are just three carriages on this train, one a service car, one a restuarant, and one a lounge car. And only twenty guests with twelve staff. I have never in my life had such a treat.

This train just goes on for some ten hours and oh boy is this the way to do it!!

Coffee and full breakfast. Watching the world pass by. This journey is much like, yet again, climbing up to Hardknot, farms then it gets steeper and steeper and after some three hours the summit, stop for a shop!! Oh yes those traders do not miss a trick. Then a steep descent.

THEN!! If you can imagine Hardknot a thousand times wider, higher, and longer.

An hour passes, Adobe farm, llama, cattle sheep, grass. The rails clack,clack at 30mph.

An hour passes, ditto, clack clack.

Clack clack.

Clack clack.

Read a book.

Have a walk round.

Pass a hot springs in the middle of knowhere. Girls in Bikinis, I think I had too many altitude tablets!

But no, local kids avoid paying to get in by bathing just upstream from from the spa. Skinny dips of course!

Clack clack.

Have a chat.

Clack clack.

Look out the window. Its the same.

Six hours of clack clack!!

Then into Puno and another day and another story.