There are other trekking options such as the Lares Trail but when we sought out local advice from llama path (www.llamapath.com) who were recommended by several guide books as well as fellow travellers. We were told they would do it but we'd be better off getting the train at this time of year. The guy there even gave us instructions on how to do this the cheapest way, by getting a bus to oliantetambo and getting a train from there. He even marked all the places we needed to go onto our map of the city!
This was great service as I believe many of the tour companies in the area would have tried to sell us a bus tour for double the price we paid to DIY it.
There are two train companies who run services to Machu Picchu, Inka Rail and Peru Rail. We went with Peru rail because they have trains with skylights so you can see the surrounding mountains but they may be a bit more expensive. You can also pay for tickets to Machu Picchu in the Peru rail office if you are doing a DIY trip. We were lucky and despite only booking 2 days in advance we managed to get huanapicchu tickets (note that if you set the website to English the final screen which allows you to print a booking voucher does not currently work!). For the uninitiated huanapicchu is the mountain next to Machu Picchu, they let 400 people up a day in 2 groups, our tickets were in the first group of 200 who set out to scale the mountain between 7 and 8 am.
Instead of the option the guy in llama path recommended we decided to get the train from Poroy, a station just outside Cusco, which cost us 30 soles in a taxi on our way there thinking it would be easier. All I can say is that if you go in the rainy season DO NOT do this!
We set off at half seven in the morning with the aim of getting to Aguas Caliente, the village at the bottom of Machu Picchu at lunch time, so we could have a look around, stay the night then get the first bus up the hill at 5am the following morning. Little did we know that the overnight rain had caused a landslide onto the track.
We travelled for about 35 minutes before the train stopped. It was interesting to note that lack of information on train problems is not limited to British trains. We sat on the train for an hour before being told that we could get out of the greenhouse like train and sit at the side of the track. As it was a lovely morning and they said we had about an hour to kill we had a beer while sat on some rocks and watched everyone who had Machu Picchu tickets for today get increasingly worried (this was a good spectator sport at this point as it is always interesting to see different cultures reactions to difficulties and we still had plenty of time to make it).
After an hour or so sitting around we were herded back into the train and continued with the landslip apparently cleared. We travelled another 30 minutes including a very slow section where we apparently crossed the rock fall area before once again halting.
Apparently no-one had thought to check further up the track where a second rockfall had occurred. It was at this point the Peru rail engineers decided enough was enough and said it was unsafe to continue, the train was going to return to Poroy station. The problem being that 3 trains were now between us and the station and they all had to go back and unload before we got to the station.
What followed was a further hour of being stationary followed by and hour and a bit of going back to the starting station. During this time no-one could tell us what was going to happen at Poroy, unlike half the people on the train who planned to get the early train out and the late train back our tickets were still valid for the following day so we still wanted to get to Machu Picchu that day if at all possible, we tried calling peru rail from the train to book a ticket from olliatetambo later in the day but were told that their sytems were down.
At 3pm we arrived in Poroy, we were told that we were being taken to the Peru rail office in the central train station to get a refund. Apparently a bus was coming but there was no sign of it when we got off the train. We decided to cheat and got a taxi to beat the queue (from our train, we knew 3 other trains were ahead of us). It was carnage when we arrived at the peru rail office, a lot of people finding that although they could get a refund for their train ticket they would not be able to get their entry to machu picchu refunded. We were lucky and managed to book a different train from olliantetanbo at 9pm and get out of the office by 5:30pm (there was a hundred strong queue out of the door of the office when we left) we then hot footed it and got a collectivo.
A collectivo is a shared taxi or bus, we made the mistake of getting in a new looking 4 seater taxi which already contained a family of 4 (2 adults and 2 smallish kids) and their cat (we only found this out after 20 minutes when it started mewing from the boot). The fact the taxi looks new was our error, it meant the driver who drove this route for set fares was good at his job, completing the journey more times than his competitors... We should have guessed he drove like a maniac! The journey is supposed to take 2 hours but our driver managed it in 1 hour 30, in the dark and pouring rain while nearly killing all of us 6 or 7 times!
We arrived at 8pm, hearts racing, rain pouring, at the station, happy to be alive. Having only had cereal bars for most of the day we decided to grab food before getting the train. We also felt we needed a pisco sour and a beer. This coupled with a pretty good meal made us feel a lot better.
Despite the torrential rain the train was waiting for us at olliantetanbo, and by some miracle we made it to aguas caliente at 11pm, 16 hours after we set off.
We had to get up at 4:45am the next morning to get the bus up to Machu Picchu in time to climb Huanapicchu, we were tired from the travelling the day before and the lack of sleep, so not in the best of moods but as soon as we set foot on the site and glimpsed the main buildings before other people arrived we were transformed. The whole thing was breath taking, the climb to Huanapicchu was brilliant (I am glad we didn't try this later in life as it is a toughie, including one part where you crawl through a cave), the views from the top all around the valley is phenomenal.
So basically whoever said "It is better to travel than to arrive" is an idiot.
Ps. I know this is supposed to be a food blog, I could tell you about the snacks Peru rail fed us, the chocolate covered corn biscuits, the deep fried salted banana slices, the excellent saltado and chips we had in the cafe in olliantetanbo before getting the train and the aji al gallino I had once we finished at Machu Picchu or the giant fried corn which you can buy as a snack here and which tastes like popcorn despite being still in the shell, but to be honest the main thing was the beauty and mystery of Machu Picchu, everything else is not really important.
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