A pivotal moment
Granted, the illnesses are nowhere near as bad—despite how much I’ve felt I was dying during my many episodes perched on the throne—but I’m trying to look on this as the world’s way of evening the score a little down through the ages, and ensuring we invaders of the world are not left untouched.
I’ve been putting away cups of mate de coca at every opportunity to try and settle my bowels, but whatever it is that has a hold of me is well beyond simple remedies. I found the booklet from the traveller’s medical kit last night, which had put the Hydrolite as the first treatment, then gastro-stop, then antibiotics, which I’d seen but not considered seriously. Beyond antibiotics I was looking at serious hospital time. The first two stages had to this point, not stopped the bug, and I was worried by the realisation I was now afflicted with something so nasty it required antibiotics to stop it.
I was glad we’d ended up having to take the train from Ollantaytambo. Getting the service from Cusco would’ve meant a rush to beat the much larger number of tourists making the journey from there, and the experience of staying in the small colonial town felt more real somehow, despite the tourist beacon attached to the mountainside.
The lack of urgency here, carried over to the train service. The train station at Ollantaytambo is a modest colonial style, though it took a while to get a look inside it, as all passengers were locked out until the train arrived to collect us. An earlier service had already passed through in the morning enroute to Cusco, and this smaller train of ours was itself bringing a fresh load of tourists to Ollantaytambo.
For waiting, we had the choice of staying at the gates and getting hot and sticky in the Sun, or taking a seat in one of the small cafes near the entrance, where flies buzzed in the shade and a variety of foreigners eyed each other curiously. I now had a constant craving for cold water, though I was warned off drinking anything that had ice blocks in it (the water used to make the ice could be tainted). I bought bottled, refrigerated water, and did my best to sip it down before it reached room temperature.
By the time they opened the gates for us to go through to the platform I was needing two bathrooms, and did my best in a restroom already used by lots of tourists (not pretty). The train was actually just two self-powered carriages (not unlike Victoria’s sprinter service), with minimal luggage space and legroom that reminded me of my recent day trip, although the train was marginally more generous.
The train rolled away from the station and in relatively little time the farms surrounding Ollantaytambo had disappeared into the tangled forest. There are two train types for Machu Picchu: one is the train the foreigners take, paying a premium that is hideously expensive by Peruvian standards yet still not enough to really make most Europeans or Americans sit up and take notice; the other train service is for Peruvians only, offered at a significant discount (and occasionally I think, for free). The tourist service from Cusco offered a range of classes, but this one from Ollantaytambo was basic only.
We weren’t long away from the station when we came to the conclusion we’d been unfortunate enough to be in a carriage with a rather large tour group, comprised of Germans, Americans and (gulp) Australians. They were all flying high with excitement and subsequently boisterous in a way that drew attention to them from inside and outside the carriage. The only saving grace was they were grouped at the other end of the carriage, so the noise of their enthusiasm was slightly dimmed. I guess because I wasn’t travelling in a large group, I didn’t have the collective enthusiasm around me to make me more vocal, but I still found them annoying, that was until I started paying more attention to what was going past me.
It hadn’t occurred to me before, but Machu Picchu is actually quite a way inland on the eastern side of the Andes. We followed the Urubamba as it snaked through steep remote valleys on its way to the Amazon. Occasionally, we saw isolated farming communities still using the old terraces that occupied the rare spots where the valley was wide enough to permit the altering of a mountainside. In this region of the Andes, there are few snow-capped peaks (at this time of year at least), but they are nonetheless rugged and hold an air of never having been truly explored by humans.
At times we spied the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu on the other side of the river, and in some of the rare clearings, muddied and tired looking trekkers who’d clearly got more than they bargained for but were now too far along the trail to turn back. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but sooner than I realised, I’d have a very good understanding of what that emotion would feel like. The further into the jungle we went, the denser the vegetation became. We were clearly descending in altitude (nearly 1km lower than Cusco), and the high altitude tundra had long since given way to thickening jungle.
I spied the stone edifice of Wiñay Wayna hanging from the side of a distant mountain, and as we drew nearer, and it became more distinct, even the rowdy mob at the front of the carriage grew quiet. Some made an effort to photograph it as we passed, but all too quickly, it had disappeared from view as we rounded another bend in the final approach towards Aguas Calientes.
As we rolled into Machu Picchu pueblo, we wondered if the name announced for the town was incorrect, as even the guide only refers to Aguas Calientes. Rumour has it the town is now so densely packed, they have started building in the cemetery due to a lack of available land. I can see some advantages in that, especially if you’re committed to spending your life there. You’d be guaranteed your final resting place.
I’d heard and read a variety of stories about the variations in quality of accommodation here—the cemetery notwithstanding, though I doubt there’d be many complaints about the accommodations in that part of town—so we’d booked into a relatively upmarket hotel, and I was truly grateful I’d not been conservative in deciding to spend a bit more here. The hotel had sent someone to meet us, and they led us from the hotel through the large labyrinthine craft market that occupies the area adjacent to the train station, designed to trap tourists as they arrive and leave, and along one of the tributary streams that merges here with the Urubamba, to the hotel.
With the beginning of the rainy season, there was a lot of low cloud drifting across the steep walls of the valley. From the town, you can’t actually see the ruins unless you know where to look, and I found myself scanning the peaks high above for any sign of the iconic stone huts and terraces. I think I spotted it at one point, before it disappeared into clouds.
No sooner had we got into the room and I was perched on the throne, thankful we’d got a room with it’s own toilet and ensuite. I used more than a day’s supply of toilet paper in a couple of hours, and I was running a high fever. Suffice to say I was beginning to feel very unwell. It just had to be that my health would truly fail at the time when we were probably in the most remote part of the trip: in a town with only a single outbound transport route that had by now closed down for the day. It was at this point that I bit the bullet and started the course of antibiotics, mixed with the remaining hydrolite.
I didn’t quite want to admit it to myself, but in the back of my mind was the experience of watching Dad’s health deteriorate severely almost a year earlier, and how I’d become aware of almost missing an opportunity. This, plus the worry that perhaps even the antibiotics wouldn’t work, gave me a strong compulsion to call home. I slept until the time zones aligned enough for the call to go through at a charitable hour, and then got the hotel to put the call through. I got to speak to my parents for a while, and they seemed to pick up that I wasn’t in a good way. We talked for about ten minutes and at the end of it, I was $50 poorer, but it was worth it. It was comforting to hear familiar voices, especially at a time where I genuinely felt I was in for a long and difficult recovery.
By now I’d not eaten for the entire day, and when Edgard returned from dinner he made a suggestion that I’d been contemplating, but didn’t want to face up to. Perhaps I wouldn’t be able to make it up Machu Picchu in the morning, and I would have to leave here without ever seeing it.