Aqua Calientes
After a few very entertaining days in Cuzco we caught the train to Aqua Calientes – This, of course, was rather entertaining as well, particularly as on the day we planned to go the railway station went on strike…. The trains sat at the platform & left (empty) at the correct time, but the main station of Cusco had the doors locked!
This meant the Hotel staff and tour companies all rushed around organising buses that left at 6am to be at over the mountains and down the Sacred Valley to Ollaytatambo station before the train got there. As it is a small country station it was not ready for hundreds of people descending upon it, made worse by the fact Agua Calenties has no road access so everything is taken there on the train. Every local trader carries their wares on board each day to sell at Macchu Picchu.
After battling with the crowd we manage to acquire 2nd class tickets after 2 hours. First class were sold first, and you got onto your seat in a carriage, then the doors were closed. Second class got a seat in a carriage, but the doors were not closed, and all the third class people rushed in and sat in the aisles, between the seats and squeezed you up so that there were 3 instead of 2 per seat. All this was done in a friendly and happy manner in Spanish, while hawkers walked through selling hot maize and cold drinks! No photos were taken, due to squash and etiquette.
Agua Calientes is the town below Machu Picchu. Everything happens here as there is only one expensive resort up at Machu Picchu itself. The front door to the hotel is on the station platform while the balcony looks over the bus station, river and market.
Uramamba River from hotel 
Aqua Calientes 
Construction rather manual
The rail line serves as the main road of the town, and the traders fold back the awnings of their stalls to let the trains through. The river is the Urubamba, which flows from the Andes into the Amazon and out into the Atlantic Ocean. This flow rate is normal! The train line and station are the centre of town, the main thoroughfare and market. The platform also served as restaurant so we could drink our cocoa leaf and Annis tea (with cake!)
We caught the bus up the windy and hazardous road to the ruins. Machu Picchu is enormous, with a lot of uphill step-climbing We chose not to climb the peak where there are more ruins. If you look carefully at the picture you can see terraces high on the mountain. Some of the stone work was very exact while other parts were more functional, but it all must have taken a lot of skill and work. We were here during December which is considered the off season, I think it relates to the European holiday time. The clouds were low, but then again the mountains are high !
After that it was time to return to Cusco. The train left in the afternoon, but late at night it was climbing up out of the Sacred Valley when it stopped. After a while of darkness and Spanish we found that there had been a landslide and the rail was blocked. After more delay we reversed back down the line slowly and were parked on a siding. A train went passed, then after another wait we reversed further down and eventually ended up at Ollaytatambo. We had been sidelined to let the tourist train past, so they could be at Ollaytatambo first and soak up all the buses and taxis that had been roused out of bed to take people to Cusco!
We were all kicked out of the station into a deserted village and the barbed wire gates were locked!
After a couple of hours in the only cafe open a guy offered to take us in an old wreck to Cusco for $80US per person, about 15 times the usual fee. We declined, and luckily a gent who was heading to Urubamba offered us a lift, and even more luckily we saw the couple who had guided us around Urubamba at the gas station at 1am! They had been part of the taxi fleet to Cusco and had just got back. They found us a bed for the night, and we continued by bus the next day.