The story of our visit to Machu Picchu, Peru with kids
Train ride from Sacred Valley to Aguas Calientes
Aguas Calientes
Machu Picchu

The story of our visit to Machu Picchu, Peru with kids

The train ride

Our trip to Machu Picchu was right in the middle of our Peru trip planned with two things in mind, reducing altitude sickness and Yuri’s 10th birthday. the day started off with Yuri celebrating his big DAY.  This whole trip was his idea as he is very interested in the Inca and other native american history so kicking it off by starting on our trip to Machu Picchu really meant a lot to us.

We had decided to leave for Machu Picchu from Ollantaytambo and go on to Cusco from there.

Our hotel in Ollantaytambo, Tunupa Lodge, was about 5 minute walk from the train station.  We were advised by the travel agent that we are only allowed one carry on bag per passenger on the train to Machu Picchu, so we decided to keep our day packs and 2 carry on luggage between the four of us. The rest of our luggage was picked up by the driver on the previous day and sent ahead to our hotel in Cusco, waiting for us to get there.

We loitered in the hotel grounds as long as we could after the morning hike to Ollantaytambo hike to hang out with the resident alpacas and enjoy the glacier views.

There are some small restaurants near the train station that serve nice local food for reasonable cost.  Many places served Peruvian food as well as burgers, fries, etc so the kids did not have to eat unfamiliar food for every meal.

We got to the train station an hour before it was supposed to leave.  Boarding was pretty orderly, the tickets and passports were checked outside of the coaches before boarding.

We had taken the Expedition train, which had wide windows on the sides and tops and amazing views of towering mountains and the Urubamba river flowing right next to the train tracks.

Aguas Calientes

We reached Aguas Calientes around 3 PM.  It has a small station which is about a 5 minutes walk to the Santuario hotel.  With only a couple of carry-on luggage, walking to the hotel was a breeze.

The lack of elevator in the hotel was sorely felt because of the bum foot..so glad we didn’t have a ton of luggage to haul up.  However, the view from the room was totally worth it!  The beautiful mountains and the roaring river right outside the room took our breath away.

Yuri was itching to bring out his newly acquired chessboard with the Spanish and Incas players..so before we could even wash away the dirt from our hike and travels, out came the chessboard!

We ended the day by dining out at a local restaurant on the main street of Aguas Calientes with a lot of restaurants on both sides with the train path going right between them!

We celebrated his big 10 with a traditional Peruvian celebratory dinner of cuy, alpaca steaks and Pisco sour.  Cuy is roasted guinea pig which is normally eaten when celebrating special occasions like birthdays.  Many people raise them in their home for food.  Luckily the kids were not squeamish about it,  though I had some trouble getting past the mental block.  It had a slightly gamey texture.  Alpaca steak tasted a lot like lamb and was served with roasted vegetables.  Pisco sour is a must try for grown-ups!  Our dinner took about an hour to arrive, thanks to the order of roasted cuy.  And we had a good time watching  the occasional trains going through the middle of the restaurants like it made total sense!

Heading off to Machu Picchu

In the morning, we woke up bright and early around 5 AM, had a good breakfast at the Santuario hotel and left for our bus ride to Machu Picchu.

Leaving our luggage with the hotel, we walked to the bus stop and saw a lonnng line of people people waiting for their turn to get on the bus.  The line was a mile long, however, the buses were coming almost every minute so the line moved very quickly.  After waiting for about 30 minutes, we got our passports checked and tickets scanned and off we went to see the Machu Picchu ruins.

The bus ride was a quick 30 min drive through beautiful mountains with hairpin bends.  We marked a bus going back every 30 seconds, the bus transportation to Machu Picchu is one of the most well organized we had seen anywhere.

The entrance of Machu Picchu had the only restrooms of the area and a small cafe.  It cost 1 soles to use the bathroom, we made sure to keep about 10 soles in change for multiple visits during our tour there.  Again, there were a lot of people but the lines moved very fast.

They have male attendants who pick up trash from both men’s and women’s bathrooms.  It was a little disconcerting to see a few men walk into the women’s bathroom in a semi hazmat suit to collect trash.

We had heard that the sewage system in Peru is not meant to handle toilet paper.  Tourists are strictly instructed to throw toilet paper and all the trash in trash bins instead of flushing anything down the toilet.  Hence the face masks for trash collectors!

At the entrance, we got our MP tickets and passports stamped.  And finally we were in.  The first view of the ruins was breathtaking!  With the fog in the early morning, it truly felt like we had stepped back in time in the middle of nowhere.

We were worried with the minor drizzle and fog but all that lifted in a couple of hours making it a beautiful sunlit day.

The tour guide took us through the main areas of interest like the Temple of the Sun, the Three Windows, the Quarry, the Temple of the Condor, the Caretaker’s Hut, the water compass, etc.

And where do we take the classic picture, you ask?

The most popular and easiest to get to is from the Hut with a Roof. As we walked in from the entrance, the path was to the left.  It was a good 20 minutes climb that got us really out of breath.  Once we got there, majority of the people started taking pictures at the first sight.  It was hard to get any pictures without other people or a bunch of selfie sticks in our faces.  After spending 15 minutes trying to get a picture without other arms and cameras in our frame, we climbed up and went past the main view point.  Here, we got wide open angles with nary a person in sight.

So patience was definitely the key to picture taking success here!

While walking around among the ruins, we met a few wild llamas.  They were pretty curious and liked to come close enough to touch.  It could be that people feed them, there were instructions not to feed the wild life as it disrupts the ecosystem.

Our guide gave us an awesome tip to attract the llamas.  It seems they are strongly attracted the smell of bananas, so the best trick is to peel a banana part way and keep it in our bag.  The llamas will come close enough to touch and take pictures with. Mathews ended up getting chased by a llama for the banana and he was not happy!

We stayed for about 5 hours and loved every minute of it!! Kids enjoyed climbing and scampering around the sights, trying to get close to the llamas.  We felt one with the clouds..coming to Machu Picchu was a dream of a lifetime.

Coming back to Aguas Calientes was just as easy out.  We waited for about 15 minutes for our turn to board, were back in 30 minutes.  It left us an hour to have lunch and catch our train to Cusco.  Boarding the train back was a lot more confusing, we had to follow a leader with our coach number placard all the way to the last platform and board the train behind her.  But all in all, an amazing visit!

The train ride back to Cusco was around 4 hours, we all slept through part of it, it was a long tiring day but was totally worth every minute.

Also see: Traveling to Peru with kids