Aguas Calientes a.k.a. Machu Picchu Pueblo

So we’ve talked a bunch about Machu Picchu, but neglected to talk about the town of Machu Picchu. Technically, it’s called Machu Picchu Pueblo, but it’s known colloquially as Aguas Calientes, for the natural hot springs that are found right outside town.

It is a small town of about 1600 people, and nearly 100% supported by tourism. What I didn’t expect was to be charmed by the town itself. It certainly wasn’t the architecture. Like most of Peru that we saw, architecture seems to be a cross between ramshackle and ghetto. Many buildings are unfinished, it’s quite common to see the top floor incomplete on an otherwise finished building. I thought this was just a “pay as you go” strategy for building, but our guide Ali said that you don’t have to pay tax on an unfinished building, so lots of people try to duck their tax bills with this strategy.

There is no road to the town, so *everything* has to come by train. Even the buses (medium size “greyhound” type buses) that take you up to Machu Picchu came on the train – although our guide said that they had to take the wheels off the buses to get them through the tunnels. You see this also in the architecture of the town. No building materials are wider than about 6 feet. So there are lots of 6 foot by 8 foot sections of corrugated metal.

The people and the landscape certainly help. The people are charming, extraordinarily polite (we found this in Cusco too) and even when they are bugging you to buy something, they are nice. The landscape is striking. The town is this little gem tucked away in a tiny valley with 4 striking peaks jutting out of the land. These aren’t like mountains at home, no foothills, no hesitation, just several thousand feet of rock rushing towards the sky. I have no good pictures that capture this, but here are a couple that try.

The market is extensive. Close to 100 little stalls. There is lots of overlap between what they sell, but a ton of variety still. This is the only place we’ve really felt tempted to buy souvenirs. We each bought a couple of beautiful hand-woven alpaca sweaters and a scarf. No souvenirs produced in china and shipped here (yet). Sam has developed the interesting habit of paying more than the asking price for everything she buys. It’s funny. To be fair, the stuff is cheap. A nice sweater is 25, and a beautiful scarf is 8. Next time you see Sam if you notice that one of her arms is much more muscular than the other, that’s just from carrying her bag stuffed full of souvenirs. Don’t tease her about it, she’s sensitive.

And finally, the kids. Little kids are everywhere. They hang out with their parents wherever their parents are – at the craft market, at small shops, at restaurants. (I guess it’s summer and school is out). The kids of the town seem to have 2 speeds. They are either stopped or they are running full speed (or riding little big wheel toys) down the slopes of the town (it is quite hilly). Nothing in between. And they are beautiful. Many of the Peruvian people we saw were quite striking, and the kids more so. We didn’t really get any great pictures of the kids, as that’s kind of creepy.

There were so many we thought about just taking a couple home, along with the baby fur seal, penguin chick, llama and bear cub that we are already smuggling in our luggage. If only we’d thought to bring an extra blank passport along…

Here are some more pictures of Aguas Calientes…

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