Riding to Machu Picchu | South America Motorcycle Journey | S.2 Ep.12

Morning. Morning. We're here in Cusco, Peru. We've just spent a few days here enjoying the city and getting some work done on the bikes. We managed to go for a little ride around, found a tour company and they were able to sort my front tyre out. They had a little bit of a battle with it and they they got it back on the rim properly so that's nice and smooth now. They drilled out the bolt that was broken in my pannier rack and they put a new one in there. They've cleaned our air filters and they've just given the bikes a once over and a bit of a clean and then I also changed the front brake pads on my bike because they were nearly gone and it was just a good time to change them. So yeah, bikes are good, ready to go again. So we've had a good time here in Cusco. So today, well over the next few days sorry, we are going to ride around Sacred Valley and make our way to Ullantaytambo. Ullantaytambo is the place that people get trains from to Aguascaliente where you can check out Machu Picchu. I'm so excited. It's a massive, massive one on the bucket list. We're both really excited to explore that area. So yeah, it's going to be a really fun few days. All right, we're ready to get on the bikes. Yeah. Let's get riding. Let's go exploring. Let's try and negotiate these little streets of Cusco. A lot of them are quite steep and they're all cobbled. It's not the easiest place to get around. We're going to go right here. Had such a nice time here. It was so relaxing. Very touristy but just really nice to spend a few days here. Eat some good, yeah, eat some good food. All the architecture was really pretty. It's a beautiful city. It was nice for us. You've got to try and get your health back on track for a couple of days, eating good food, slow down a little bit, relax. We're good to go. The bikes are good to go. We're out of the main streets of Cusco and we're just climbing, climbing on this little gravel track. What are we at now? 3,879 meters. So we're still quite high. You can feel it with the bikes. They're just slightly down on power but they are running nicely. Especially now we've just changed the air filters and the pre-filters and cleaned them all up. Nice to do a little bit of a once over on the bikes and just get that feel back, that nice feel. Hello little guys. When you get out of the cities and the big towns here in Peru, it's much the same as Bolivia. Basic farming methods, basic living, even the way the houses are built. So you've got the mud block houses. It's quite a contrast to being in the center of Cusco and then back to this and they're not far apart at all. That little dust devil in the middle of the street, he goes right up as well. Watch out Matt. I don't want to get sucked away. That's cool, I've not seen one. Ah, it's gone. That's cool. That was very cool. I was worried you were going to be taken away. No, I won't be taken anywhere. You'd have to have a lot of force to take me away after this trip. Let's just say I'm packing a few more pounds. There's more of you to love. Definitely. So we're arriving on a very bumpy cobbled road but it looks a nice little town already. Oh, here's the plaza. Oh, this is nice. Oh, beer. So I'm guessing all of this is one-way streets. Ah, I can see the sign up there. Perfect. What's the verdict Hayley? What's the verdict? I didn't ask her about keeping the bikes there. So they've got a room? Yeah, they've got a room. We have been in this hostel in Ullantay, Tambo for two days now. We've both been struggling with some really severe food poisoning. We went out, the day we arrived here, we went into the plaza and ate. We both had very similar dishes with a bit of meat on there and then the day after Matt was just throwing up everywhere and the foreworks and then the day after that it was my turn. So we have been trying to nurse a pretty serious 24-hour food bug. So yeah, now we're both feeling a little bit more human. We're going to try and get the train to Aguas Calientes where we'll be heading to Machu Picchu. So first up we're going to get a little bit of breakfast in and then we're going to walk to the train station, get the tickets and then get on the train. It's going to be really scenic there from here to Aguas Calientes. I think it's about an hour and a half train ride but I think that's like an attraction in itself apparently. So I'm excited to do that and to hopefully get tickets for tomorrow morning which is our preferred time to go to Machu Picchu. Right, we're going to get ready now and then we'll be on our way. So we're packing just little night bags with us. We're packing light, that's it. Cameras, jacket, coat, change of socks and underwear. Because we'll be going straight from where we're staying in Aguas to Machu Picchu in all of this. So nice and light but plenty of layers in case it gets really cold which it probably will be if we leave first thing in the morning to Machu Picchu. Come on, let's go. Let's go. Okay, so we just found the place that we have to buy the tickets from, the entrance tickets for Machu Picchu. We waited in line for a while, finally got into the office and he's now giving us a ticket to then go back at nine o'clock this evening which is like another eight hours. I don't know why we couldn't just buy them there but that's the process so we're going to do that and then I think we also now need to buy the bus tickets to take us from here in Aguas Calientes to Machu Picchu. So we're going to try and find that now, wherever that may be. Okay, so we've had an early start this morning. We were up at about about 4.45, had a little bit of breakfast on the way down that we bought last night and then joined the queue for the bus. We were in that for a little while weren't we? Yeah. Probably about 45 minutes an hour and now we've just gone through the ticket booth and we're walking up to Machu Picchu. Exciting. Hopefully the visibility is good and we can actually see it. Fingers crossed. How are we Hayley? I feel weak. Yeah, too weak to probably do an hour-long steep hill walk but I think the view is going to be nice up there. I just feel a bit broken. It's good, we're on our Huayna Picchu trail. Now, if you think of the iconic Machu Picchu picture, you see the big mountain in the background standing out, that's Huayna Picchu and we're walking up that. It's a challenge, it's definitely got us breathing. It's good though, like Hayley said, the view is going to be worth it. All the way up there, it did take us a couple of hours, rain trip, it's well worth it. Such a good view, amazing. You can see all the terraces up there that they've built. It's pretty impressive isn't it? So cool. Imagine the villagers living here, like people in this village. That's your neighbour, knock on that person's door, got the blinds down. So we are back in our hostel in Ollantaytambo after what was quite a busy and rushed end to our Machu Picchu experience and walking back down into the town of Agua Caliente. It was great, it was a real beautiful walk but my knees are killing. We haven't done this much exercise for the six months we've been on this trip so that walk and today really really took it out of me and took it out of Hayley as well. So yeah, I'm sure we'll be feeling that tomorrow. Once we got back to Agua Caliente we had to get a train then back here. We didn't have much time at all, we grabbed some food, jumped on the train and then took the train back. As soon as we got off the train we sat in the train station and just ate our food on the side of the tracks on a little bench. Then we've come back here so it's been a little bit of a rushed end to the experience but amazing. Machu Picchu is absolutely incredible, it's beautiful. The scenery around it, something else, something I'll always remember and being able to hike up to Huayna Picchu and see the sight looking back on it from the view we did, it was really really cool. Obviously it's a tourist attraction, it was busy, that's something you're not going to get away from unfortunately. So yeah, the tourists and the amount of people do take something away from it a little bit but we're those people as well and that's what it is. But yeah, amazing place. Agua Caliente as a town as well is really cool, you've got the train track running through it, all the restaurants, bars and all the little trinket shops selling the standard llama jumpers and ponchos and hats and things everywhere all the tourists buy. It's a pretty little place, it was cool, it's cool to be there. So I'm going to wrap this one up now because I'm quite tired and you probably see it in my face. I've had a busy couple of days, great couple of days, Machu Picchu was amazing but it's time to get to bed and I've got to rest these legs because next we're going to ride from here and the plan is to ride the Great Dividing Trail. There's going to be some high passes, some high peaks, we're going to be riding altitude a lot of the time, it's going to be beautiful, beautiful scenery and some great riding so really looking forward to that. So I'll see you then, good night.