Getting to Machu Pichu, loving Machu Pichu, and leaving Machu Pichu

Where do I even begin this blog?  I guess at the beginning of yesterday.  Moyra and I got up at 4:45 which at least for me is not the best time to start the day.  We grabbed some breakfast and walked in the dark down the cobblestone streets to where the "collectivos" wait.  These are vans that go to certain places and leave for their destinations once they are full.  They were just two people short so they were happy to see us.  We were the only non-Peruvians as most tourists tend to take taxis.  Again everyone was very nice.  There were 19 of us in the van....they make the most of their space.  We paid about $2 each to go to the train station which was about 20 min away.  The driver dropped us off on the side of the road.  Luckily we asked where the train station was.  He said just go down that way (all in Spanish).  It was just a short walk.  The train station was very nice and clean.  We waited for about 30 min and got on our train.  The trains are are very nice and clean.  The seats were cushy, they played pan flute music overhead which made the teenagers from Toronto sitting across from us happy to have their IPODs. We were served a wonderful breakfast of prickly pear, melon, watermelon, puffed wheat cereal, and breads. Our silverware was placed on our Peruvian placemats with silver tongs.  The ride was incredibly scenic (and soon I will post pictures I hope).  Three hours later we arrived in the town of Aguas Calientes.  This cute little town exists purely to accommodate visitors to Machu Pichu.  We thought (silly us) that there would be signs to buy the entrance tickets and bus tickets needed to get into Machu Pichu....nope, we got off and directly entered a marketplace full of stuff for tourists to buy.  It was only after asking around that we found our way to the cultural center.  To get tickets we had to show our passports and our name and passport number appeared on our ticket.  The bus tickets were sold elsewhere.  Finally, after about 45 min we were on a bus headed for Machu Pichu.  The ruins are accessible only by these buses.  No private vehicles are allowed.  The road is narrow so anytime two buses meet one must back up so the other can go.  They seem to have a great system worked out although I have no idea what it is.  The road was a series of switchbacks getting us higher and higher.  After 30 min we arrived at the ruins.  There is no food allowed so we checked our snacks and jackets as the day was quite nice.  Again they checked our tickets and passports and we were on our way.  There were plenty of people offering to be our guides but we really wanted to set our own pace so we declined.  The first sign we saw said long integral...well, that seemed like a good idea.  Pretty soon we were sucking some serious air.  I thought the Incas were rather short but the stone steps they built were far apart and we had a workout.  The view was truly indescribable.  I did get some amazing pictures that hopefully will at least partially do it justice.  Words however cannot.  Moyra scattered some of her sister Pebble's ashes there yesterday.  Gordon's son scattered some of his ashes there shortly after he died in 2006. What a view they both have.  Eventually we took the bus back to Aguas Calientes and had some lunch at a restaurant.  We had their giant corn with cheese and a quinoa risotto.  We looked in a few shops and finally found a comfy bench in their main plaza.  There have been lots of dogs in both Cuszo and Aguas Calientes.  They appear to be strays.  They just wander around.  Strangely and wonderfully enough they don't really seem to bother anyone and everyone seems to be nice enough to them.  We made friends with a few yesterday and fed one a cheese sandwich.  He was great at catching bites tossed up in the air.  The dogs all had their own personalities and were so fun to watch.  At 5:30 PM we got back on our train.  Moyra was sitting next to a boy who was born and spent 9 years in New Jersey and now lives in Argentina.  They talked about soccer and other things of interest to a 13 year old boy.  I sat by Daniel a 29yr old cutie from Brazil.  He was in Cusco for just 4 days so we compared adventures.  He had traveled a great deal and was very interesting.  He lives with his girlfriend in Sao Paulo.  He has been with her for 8 years and living with her for 3.  I told him they should get married.  He got a chuckle out of that and said both families are pressuring them.  He said he would tell his girlfriend that a tourist that he met said they should get married....funny.
Ok here is where the story gets complicated.  We could not get return tickets to the station close to Cuzco.  People who hike the Inca Trail also use the train to get back to Cuzco so inbound trains fill up much faster than outbound trains.  We knew this already as we purchased the tickets from home in April.  So our train took us to a town 1.5 hours from Cuzco.  We knew that there were collectivos galore and that we could just find one.  Daniel had no experience with them so asked if he could go with us.  We quickly found a man and the three of us asked how much.  He said 15 soles which is about $5. It doesn't sound bad but we knew the price should have been about 10 with Nationals paying about 7.  It is not uncommon for tourists to pay more and we accept that.  He would not budge and we were tired so we said fine.  Soon we were joined by a couple from Chile, two women speaking French and a young woman that appeared to be Peruvian.  He said the van had to have 11 for us to go and then the saga started.  At first we waited patiently but after about 15 min we asked when we were going to go.  The driver told us there were 4 people in the bathroom that were going with us.  We waited...no people.  By then everyone from our train was gone with the next train not arriving for 1.5 hours, still this man refused to go.  He said we could pay for the remaining seats and divide it among ourselves.  He was already overcharging us.  Now throughout this everytime he would leave we would come up with storied about what was going on.  We (all of us in the van) were laughing hysterically.  This man was being so untruthful with all of us.  Every person in the van spoke Spanish so it was not like we didn't understand the problem.  Finally, after deciding that it would not be a good idea to drive the van ourselves, nor did we want to spend the night in the train station, we ALL got off and found another van together(even though the man had said they were all gone, he was just lying again)...power to the people.  We were soon on our way and arrived in Cuczo after 1.5 hours of dark windy roads that were best not to think about.  We slept quite soundly last night.  Got up this morning, packed our stuff and flew here to Lima, our 5th flight in 6 days.  We are now spending the night in an ok hotel somewhat near the airport.  We have been told by several people not to leave the hotel as the area is not safe but we are hungry and our small supply of snacks does not sound like dinner.....hmmmm.  we have an early morning flight tomorrow to the city of Arequipa.  Hugs for you all!