The Hiram Bingham and Machu Picchu: Part 1

The morning after exploring the Sacred Valley we met our handler for the day, Caesar, in the hotel lobby at 8am. We walked across the street to meet our driver, Victor, and we were off to the train station to catch our train to Machu Picchu, the Hiram Bingham. As I mentioned in my first post on Peru, Phil and I have been dreaming of taking the Hiram Bingham luxury train to Machu Picchu for years, and today was the day it was going to happen!

Caesar chatted with us in the van about what we had done and seen in Peru so far. We offhandedly mentioned to him that we walked around the city the night before and grabbed a drink before turning in. Surprisingly, he responded ” By yourselves?!” This made Phil and I laugh, recalling it later. My guess is that most people who are taking the fancy pants tour don’t venture out a lot on their own, or maybe we didn’t strike Caesar as seasoned travelers. Cusco seems like a safe city. Either way, he seemed impressed by our “adventurous” spirits.

After several minutes of being stuck in traffic and starting to worry that we might not make the train on time, Victor skillfully maneuvered around other waiting cars (I found it best to close my eyes as he did this) and we arrived at the train station just in time to receive our welcome mimosas.

The porter took our luggage and showed us to our seats (a two-person dining table) on the train. He let us know that the band who had been playing to welcome us was getting ready to do some traditional dancing followed by a coca leaves ceremony if we wanted to disembark the train and watch. We did just that.

One of the dancers grabbed Phil and off they went to join the others, twirling and laughing. The coca leaf ceremony followed with prayers for a safe journey.

We had been advised by several people that, once we were settled and had talked with our waiter, we should head to the bar car first. It is located at the end of the train with an open air caboose attached where a band will be playing. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who were tipped off and luckily we grabbed the last two seats available.

The band was lively and encouraged folks to dance. After some time, and quick service from the bar car waiters, more people gradually started to join in the fun. Folks were friendly and jovial and we took turns giving up our seats for others to sit while we enjoyed views from the back of the open-air caboose.

Eventually, the caboose started to clear out and people made their way back to their tables. Only the Norte Americanos (Phil and I and a Mexican family) were left. We joked about this as the band played their last number and we were informed it was time to return to our seats for brunch.

Upon returning to our seats, we discovered that we each had been gifted a beautiful, brown suede backpack with a Hiram Bingham name plate stitched on it. There was also a Hiram Bingham water bottle tucked in one of the side pockets, bonus!

Brunch was served to us family style to our table and while I forgot to snap a pic before we dug in (all that dancing made me hungry!), I did remember shortly into the meal. We enjoyed dishes using traditional, Peruvian ingredients. We dined on pork belly, quinoa, creamed corn, and a potato dish. For dessert, we had fruit and a dark chocolate mousse that was the star of the show.

Shortly after our meal was served, the train stopped. We were told there had been a problem with another train but they were working on it. Soon the waiters were bringing drinks, and then more drinks, to all of the passengers. We were supposed to arrive at Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu (formerly known as the town of Machu Picchu) at 12:45pm. From Aguas Calientes, we would take a bus to Macchu Picchu and have a private guided tour of the Inca citadel at 2:30pm.

It was becoming obvious that we were going to be late for our scheduled activities. While Phil and I enjoy a good drink, I felt it wise not to enjoy too much as walking around the Citadel would provide at least a bit of a challenge.

While we waited, we also became aware that most of the other guests would not be staying at the Sanctuary Lodge (located at Machu Picchu) for the night. Most would be returning on the evening train back to Cusco, having purchased a package that included the morning train, tour, and return train with meals etc. A few had purchased a package that included only the brunch train and tour. We were clued in when a rather loud Aussie woman expressed her displeasure and attempted to get a partial refund or a discount on the return leg of the trip. Worth a try, but the inconvenience was beyond the control of the Belmond folks. I’m pretty sure she and her companions drank enough to even out the discrepancy.

Eventually, we were told that an earlier train had derailed and that was the reason for the delay. Shortly after the announcement, another train pulled up a long side to apparently also wait. I looked over to Arturo, our wonderful guide, waving to me from the other train.

After some more waiting, we were told that we would have to disembark the train and walk to another train in order to carry onto Aguas Calientes. As we stepped off the train, Arturo was waiting for us and the three of us walked to the other train. There are three trains that run to Aguas Calientes, the Hirman Bingham, a second train (the one we boarded with Arturo), and a third that is mostly used by locals and workers, and extreme budget travelers. The train we boarded was still quite nice and we were even sat at the caboose which included a bar car and a band. Having had our fill of drinks for a time, we chatted with Arturo as he told us more about the history of the Inca as well as local flora and fauna.

We arrived at Aguas Calientes around 4:30. Machu Picchu closes at 5pm. Arturo told us that they were going to make an exception and let a group enter the site, very briefly. After the 20 minute ride up the mountain, we had just enough time to drop the bags. We’d hoped to be able to change quickly, but our luggage had not yet arrived from the train, so we went in what we were wearing. Not ideal for trekking around, but hey, you do what you gotta do.

We were the last group to make it into the park, around 5:15. The site usually closes at 5, so the workers were ushering us through quickly. I was happy that we would have the whole following day to see it as well and felt badly for the folks who had planned for a whole afternoon there and would only end up getting about 20 minutes.

On the bright side, it was pretty cool to get a few photos without other people in the background, something that is pretty difficult to do during regular hours at the site. After our rushed, running up steps and running back down steps, I heard an Indian gentleman, who had been on the train with us, tell one worker who was hurrying us toward the exit, “You might get to see this every day, but this is a once in a lifetime experience for us.” The worker relented a tiny bit while the gentleman and his family snapped a couple of more photos.

After our whirlwind introduction to Machu Picchu and a long train ride, we took some much needed showers and relaxation in our room before heading down to dinner. Dinner was included in our stay as the lodge’s restaurant is the only dining option. It serves traditional foods with ingredients that the Inca would have had access to.

The food was tasty and beautiful. Phil had a soup starter and I enjoyed a tiradito (a Peruvian dish of raw fish that’s sliced like sashimi and served with a spicy citrus sauce) of an Amazonian fish called paiche. We also shared a small plate of pork belly that was a bit of an amuse bouche. For our mains, I decided to try the alpaca with quinoa and Phil had more pork belly that was served with fried rice and fried bananas. The alpaca tasted like a beef filet, and while a leaner cut of meat that I would normally eat (I like it fatty and/or on the bone), it was pretty darn tasty.

An unexpected and bummer of a side effect of the high altitude was having diminished appetites. On vacation in a different country is not a time that I want to eat less. So, while we were way too full for dessert, we’d observed our waiter at another table with a glass dome and something smoking in it. We asked him what it was, to which he replied with a smirk, “Don’t worry about it.”

After that comment, I had a sneaking suspicion that we would soon be finding out for ourselves what the smoking dish had been. Sure enough, shortly thereafter, we had our own smoking platter; some fruits and chocolate infused with coffee smoke.

We nibbled a bit of each offering and then called it a night. We had several entrance passes to Machu Picchu the following day. The first allowed entrance into the park at 6am, the second at 9:30am to climb Machu Picchu Mountain, and another at 2:30pm to see the Citadel.

We told Arturo before he’d left for the day, not to worry about meeting us at 6am as we doubted we would be up at that time and better to save our energy for the climb at 9:30. Originally, we’d thought that if we entered the site early, we could watch the sunrise. It sounds really nice, but after reading about it, the likelihood of actually seeing the sunrise, as opposed to clouds (and more clouds), was quite slim.

So, after sleeping in a bit, we awoke around 8 to eat breakfast and prepare for our climb. Little did we know what the day had in store for us…

Nest up: Climbing Machu Picchu Mountain and taking the Hiram Bingham back to Cusco!