The Marvelous Train Trip
What about traveling to Cusco, it’s an experience you’ll never forget
Cusco, a wonderful place filled with historical attractions located in Peru. During my time there I was never wasting my time laying in bed or just sitting there doing nothing. I was always doing entertaining activities with my friends. Since we were always doing something, time flew by and the trip felt extremely short. I believe that the best moments during this whole trip was spending time with friends playing cards and that is why I consider that one of the best moments there was being on the train. But the funniest event was when another friend of us joined the game and lost his water bottle and his hat gambling with us. The train itself departed from the Ollantaytambo station, it is located in Ollantaytambo city, 30 minutes away from Cusco city. The time you’d have to travel on train would be around one hour and a half. A train ticket costs around 200 nuevos soles.
At the start, when we arrived to the train station of Peru Rail, the train that was taking us to Machu Picchu, I was amazed by all of the crowd. The roads surrounding it was filled with people roaming around. We were all warned that there was going to be lots of people but I didn’t personally believe that there’d be that many. The moment we entered I felt the harsh change in the climate, I believe that it was because of the large amounts of smoke that came out of the trains. The steam bursting out of the train impressed me. The loud minuscule ringing bell shocked me at first because it appeared out of nowhere. While we waited for our train, a group of friends and I started to play cards with one of our hosts.
The moment the train arrived you could feel the vibrating floor tremble because of the train’s engine, you could feel the soothing wind pass by, the train covering the shiny chrome rails. The metallic blue train with “Perurail” written in bold golden letters. By the time the train halted we were all in a line waiting to get on board. When we got on the train I sat next to two of my friends, Joaquin and Jorge. The wagon’s inside had incredible designs that represented some characteristics of Cusco’s jungle. We three played Blackjack all the way to “Aguascalientes” a small isolated town that is just underneath the city of Machu Picchu. From that point on, we were on our way to Machu Picchu.
When we got to “Aguascalientes”, the name of the city we arrived at, we went directly to a bus stop. We passed by a market that looked like an enormous maze. They sold any type of items, snacks, necklaces, rare stones clothing, etc. Then we got to the bus stop we hopped on small van that was filled with disoriented tourists that were headed to the magnificent city of Machu Picchu too. My two friends and I kept playing cards at all times. Even in the bus we found out a way of how to deal the cards. Our bus was the first to get to the Restaurant Sanctuary Lodge, So we ere tje very first bus that go there. We entered the restaurant before than anyone else. The Restaurant Sanctuary Lodge was like any other but the view you received was stunningly amazing. Later on, the tour guide told us that we could serve ourselves from the buffet that had all varieties of foods, meat, salads, fruits, etc. And since there was not another single other kid from our group, there was no line we had to wait in before we ate. In the restaurant there was a free soda machine, it was the very first time I drank soda in the whole trip. I felt the rare refreshing coca-cola sweeten my mouth as I guzzled it. A while later, all of our group arrived to the restaurant. And the buffet looked like a humongous feast.
After everyone ate we all went up the inadequate sidewalk made out of small stones. We went up all the way to the peak of the mountain. In that place we took a group picture of everyone in the trip. We all were color coded so it looked like a rainbow. After that, we could appreciate the stunning view from the pinnacle of the mountain. You could see all the stone city from that spot. The irritating mosquitoes everywhere devouring my blood like blood sucking demons ruined the experience. But since it was my first time at Machu Picchu I had a wonderful time there.
