It's hard to describe the experience of visiting Machu Picchu. People who've visited like to call it "breathtaking."
While cliché, it's not inaccurate. How often are you standing on an Andean peak, walking through thousand-year-old ruins, looking down on the clouds?
For Indiana Jones, perhaps the feeling is common. For the average person like myself, the feeling is momentous. Visiting Machu Picchu evoked the kind of awe that my childhood brain produced regularly — the kind of awe that's since faded from my daily life.
Perhaps best of all, visiting Machu Picchu means dedication. Even if you live nearby, you have to really want to visit Machu Picchu. Even if you take a bus to the main entrance, you still have to work pretty hard to just traverse the grounds. Here's what that experience is like, first-hand, based on my visit in late March 2017.
There's no easy way to stay near Machu Picchu itself. That makes sense: Machu Picchu is on a remote mountaintop in the Peruvian Andes! For most travelers, including me and my wife, the trip starts very early in a bus at the Cusco bus station.
The bus we took started in Cusco — the former capital of Peru, and the original capital of the Inka Empire — and went to Ollantaytambo.
You could stay in Ollantaytambo, thus saving yourself an ungodly early bus ride from Cusco. We instead chose to stay in Cusco, as many people do, because it's a slightly bigger city and has plenty of stuff to do unto itself. It was the original capital of the Inka Empire, which means there's a load of fascinating history in Cusco itself: gorgeous plazas, churches, museums, and more. It's also a common staging area for tourists going to places other than Machu Picchu, which we did.
A few hours later, we arrived in Ollantaytambo. Since we booked our Machu Picchu travel through a company named "Inca Rail," our bus was destined for trains operated by the same company.
There are several different train operators that run to Machu Picchu: Inca Rail, Peru Rail, and the Belmond Hiram Bingham. I've intentionally listed them in that order as it shows them in order of expense, from least to most expensive. The tickets we bought on Inca Rail cost $310 in total, round trip, for two people.
That $155 per person price includes the bus from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, the train from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu, and back again.
The train station in Ollantaytambo is ready for an influx of tourists with each new bus offloading nearby. There are little shops like this selling food, as well as locals selling all manner of food and supplies. If you forgot your poncho, this is the time to buy one.
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