From Cuzco to Ollantaytambo (Sacred Valley)

This part of the trip was a little bit of a fiasco. The Viajes Pacifico Tours driver showed up ontime, which was a good start. He had some woman on the passenger side of the van. I though she was a tour guide, but she was just a guest of our clueless driver. When we made the tour arrangements, the reps in Lima insisted that we met their tour people at the El Libertador Hotel because it was a Sunday and there was no other way to get our train tickets to Machu Picchu (we originally wanted to meet them at Ollantaytambo). It is only because of this fact that it ocurred Alberto to ask for the train tickets. The driver said that we were supposed to have the tickets. We told him we were instructed to get our tickets from him. It took about 15 min of phone calls and the driver finally said that he "thought" that our tickets were with our tour operator in Aguas Calientes, but that he didn't know his name. So, Alberto asked him to double check to ensure that our tickets were there and to get the name of the operator. It was only then that the Viajes Pacifico people found that our tickets were left behind by mistake in the Cuzco office. We almost travelled to Ollantaytambo without our train tickets and admission and bus tickets to Machu Picchu. This would have ruined the whole trip to Machu Picchu. A little guy showed up a few minutes later in a beat up taxi with all the tickets, including a ticket for some tour guide who never showed up.

We finally left for the Ollantaytambo train station 30 min behind schedule. The driver insisted that we would make it to the train station on time (train rides are sold out this time of the year, so missing our train would have been a major headache). However, the driver had to drop off the mystery woman in the van in some obscure neighborhood, which took extra time. He then darted towards Ollantaytambo driving faster than what most of us thought it would be a safe speed through the hairpin curves of the Urubamba valley. This was evidence by the frequently heard expression "yikes!!" by Lynn in the back of the van before every turn. The ride was so beautiful with snow peak mountains on the top and the beautiful Urubamba Valley at the bottom, but we were not able to enjoy it much because we were concern about the driving and making it to the train station on time. Ollantaytambo was very busy with a lot of traffic, mostly going towards the train station. The driver had to drop us off 1 block away from the gate. We ran to the tracks and made it to the train with ample 3 minutes to spare before the train left. To make the trip more social, our assigned seats were not together. But we shuffled and negotiated seats with other passengers and we were able to seat next to our loved ones. We don't want to beat on the Viajes Pacifico Tour folks. This experience was a real fiasco and someone goofed with the tickets, but the remaining and larger portion of their services (including the Atisa Tours service in Arequipa and Colca) were top notch. Because of our concerns with the driving speed, we did not take any pictures on this ride. But feared no more because we had a full day tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas (Urubamba) at our return from Machu Picchu.