The city of Cuzco, considered the navel of the world by its inca founders, is a place that many people want to visit either lured by its touristic attractive or by its archeological legacy.
Here’s a few advices on how to reduce the high cost of visiting this city.

If you plan to visit Machu Picchu, it’s a good idea to go to Ollantaytambo town as soon as you set a foot into Cuzco. The town is only three hours away, by bus, and it’s the only place where you can buy Cerrojo Backpacker train tickets to Machu Picchu, which cost 24 american dollars (round trip), and departs every night at 8:20pm from Ollantaytambo (returning at 5:00 am.)
F.Y.I, the regular Backpacker -not “Cerrojo Backpacker”- round trip train ticket that departs from Cuzco city to Machu Picchu costs 66 dollars.

Then, the ‘Hiram Bingham’ round trip train ticket (also, from Cuzco to Machu Picchu) costs 468 dollars, probably is one of the most luxurious trains in South America.

If you want to, you can take the Valle Sagrado tour, which leaves from the Center of Cuzco and goes to Corao market, Pisac ruins, Ollantaytambo and Chinchero. This tour will leave you a few blocks away from the train station in Ollantaytambo (you’ll have to miss the last stop of the tour, Chinchero) and costs around 5 dollars.

Anyways, try to buy the train tickets in Ollantaytambo with anticipation, since they sell out quickly.

There is a local train that goes to Machu Picchu, but it’s only available for local people. They won’t sell tickets to foreigners, not even to peruvian citizens that don’t live in Cuzco. The cost of the round trip ticket is less than 10 dollars.

If you want to do the Inca Trail, be aware: you can only go with a tour that has a guide and ‘carriers’ (people who carry your stuff). The cost is 195 dollars in the low season, and it can go up to 300 dollars during high season, between july and august. It is possible to buy a tour for 145 dollars, but you’d have to buy the (return) train ticket in Ollantaytambo and save for buying the cheaper Backpacker train ticket. But, since they only sell tickets with three days of anticipations only, you won’t be able to buy them if you do the traditional four days trail. So, in Aguas Calientes, the closest train station, you’ll more likely get the most expensive Backpacker ticket. My advice: buy the tour package that includes the return train ticket, you won’t be able to save in this one, anyways. If you haven’t noticed it by now, everything in Cuzco is planned to make you spend more. Be prepared.

If you do take the Backpacker train, you’ll have to spend two nights in Aguas Calientes, since the train goes back from Machu Picchu to Ollantaytambo at 5 am. Another interesting plot to make you spend more. The train arrives from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes at 10 pm. Just stepping down from the train, you’ll find lots of lodge’s agents fighting for your attention. Not surprisingly, Aguas Caliente has raised its accomodation prices. Expect to pay about 4 dollars a night for a shared room, per person. Although, for 6 dollars, per person, you can get a room with private bathroom. Be sure to find a hotel near the train and the bus stations. By the way, the bus ride that takes you from Aguas Calientes station to Machu Picchu ruins takes only half an hour, but costs 12 dollars. You can walk your way up to the ruins, but it’s a two hour hike, uphill, very demanding. So it’s up to your wallet and your physical state.

In Cuzco, it’s possible to find cheap lodging, starting at 3 dollars, at local’s homes. If you want a decent hotel, with 24 hours hot water and not too far from the town center, think 15 dollars for a double with private bathroom. Also, Downtown, you can find old cheap hotels where you can share a room with other travellers, for 2-4 dollars a night. Obviously, there are much fancier and expensive hotels, but I didn’t bother to ask for prices there.

If you want to eat for less, don’t go downtown, specially run away from Procuradores street. The cheapest menu there costs 4-7 dollars. An excellent choice is the restaurant EL sabor de mi Casa, at 253 Quera street, just two blocks away from the Plaza de Armas. There are several menu options for less than 2 dollars, and it includes an entree, soup and a main course. The menu is only available at lunch time. If you get hungry later, you can have a cheeseburguer in the streets for less than a 1 dollar. Just half a block away from the Plaza. Think about it first, if you have a weak stomach. Almost no tourists eat there.

Besides Machu Picchu, there are two more tours that are a classic. One of them is the Valle Sagrado tour, that leaves the downtown of Cuzco at 9 am, and returns at 4 pm. As I said before, this one costs around 7 dollars, but does not include lunch. The bus stops at a restaurant where the menu costs somewhere around 4 dollars. If the bus stops at Urubamba town, try to avoid the restaurant and look for alternatives. You can find places that sell delicious ‘choclo con queso’, corn and cheese, that have the biggest corn teeth you’ve ever seen! The corn costs 0.30 dollars and the cheese, an extra 0.20.

Another popular tour is the city tour, this one costs a little over 4 dollars and it will take you to Sacsayhuaman ruins, Tambo Machay and Puca Pucara. Departs Cuzco at 2 pm and returns at 6 pm.

By the way, to visit the different ruins around Cuzco you have to buy a ticket that costs 10 dollars. Despite the Qoricancha temple is shown in the ticket, you’ll have to pay 2 dollars extra to get in. The Cathedral, another site, apparently decided to withdraw from the tour ticket, for reasons I would like to know.

To visit the Cathedral -highly recommended- you’ll have to pay a little less than 3 dollars. Don’t go before 10 am, since at that time religious services are being held and ‘tourism is forbidden’, as the signs inside the church indicate. By paying,you’re entitled to a guided visit to the Cathedral, but it’s nice to leave a tip at the end.

Aguas Calientes, the nearest location to Machu Picchu, and the place where buses take you to these ruins, has always been a polemical place. Plagued with vendors, irregularly established commerces and totally devoted to the commercial exploitation of the inca city, it has been in the eye of peruvian media several times.

Now, the town has decided it’s time to tie closer bonds with the inca city and demands to be known as ‘Machu Picchu village’, so that it is clear how many rights they have over the inca ruins. But the maps and the media insist on calling the town, simply, Aguas Calientes.

For this reason, the ticket of the bus that takes you from this town to Machu Picchu ruins specifies: “the place that was previously wrong known as Aguas Calientes”.

They sure learn fast about branding and the construction of a label, huh?

It is difficult to find another place in Latin America where tourism has a strong presence as in Cuzco. A good part of the city’s economy moves around this activity, in particular in the urban downton, the center of the city. Of course, there’s a number of attractions and a wide variety of tours. Nevertheless, in the five years that passed since the last time I visted Cuzco, many things have changed and some of them because of explicit policies of the peruvian government.

When I was here in 1999, I did the Inca Trail. At that time, you could do it by paying only 17 dollars. There were no more rules, you weren’t obligued to hire anything extra. This amount covered the entrance to Machu Picchu. By then, the local authorities were worried about the number of people visiting daily and the ecological impact on the trail as well as on the archeological ruins. The peruvian government decided to raise the charge for the entrance to the location and, by doing this, increase collection, raise the rentability per tourist rate and diminish the number of visits, thus reducing the impact on the environment.

Today, to do the inca trail it is mandatory to hire a tour that has a guide and luggage carriers. As you can see, this generates more employment. The problem is that it raises considerably the costs for the tourist. Nowadays, to do the inca trail, in low season, can cost -at the cheapest- 145 dollars, and you have to bargain for the price. This amount DOES NOT include the train ticket for the way back from Machu Picchu to Cuzco, that means you’ll have to go to Ollantaytambo town to buy the train ticket yourself. Here’s another surprise: the tickets are sold with three days of anticipation only. But, how can I buy it three days before if the traditional inca trail lasts four days, which means that three days before my departure I’ll still be hiking? As you can see, this is subtly designed to force tourists to buy the common Backpacker ticket, the one that costs 33 dolars (one way). Get information on this detail before you buy the package; anyways, if you’re tight on the budget, get the two days inca trail, which you can buy for 145 dollars, all included, train ticket and all. The normal price for the 4 days trail, with train ticket, is 190 dollars.

The common price that non-spanish-speaking tourists -you know, in Latin America, the tourist that doesn’t speak spanish always ends up paying more- is 290 dollars, a price that can go up to 600 dollars during the high season, the official tourist information location adviced me in Cuzco.

But the price raise doesn’t stop there. The entrance to Machu Picchu costs now 20 dollars -peruvians pay 10 dollars, and students, worldwide, get discount- The Backpacker round trip train ticket that takes you to the ruins costs 66 dollars, despite the service is rather mediocre, they won’t serve you even a glass of water. I suppose keeping the train rail system should be complicated, because of the geography, but I find the cost a little overpriced for a 4 hour ride. While I find it perfect that the peruvian government does not subsidize the maintenance of this train -I don’t see why it should use tax money to favor foreign tourists- I believe there should be a better quality-price relation. By the way, Backpacker train does not offer any discount to peruvian tourists, they have to pay the same as any european or american tourist.

The cheapest way to get to Machu Picchu is to take the Backpacker train, that departs from Ollantaytambo, a town three hours away from Cuzco, by bus. The train leaves every day at 8:20pm and the round trip ticket costs 24 hours, for a less than two hours ride. The service is practically the same of the 66 dollars Backpacker train. But to buy the ticket you have to go to Ollantaytambo, waste a few hours, buy the tickets, return to Cuzco, and then return to take the train from Ollantaytambo another day, etc. Mi advice: as soon as you get to Cuzco, run to Ollantaytambo to get the ticket, they sell out quickly.

By the way, the scheduled times of these cheaper trains are fixed in such a way that you’d have to travel, for example, on a monday night at 8:20pm and return on a wednesday at 5 am. Hence, you have to spend two nights in Aguas Calientes, the town located 30 minutes away from Machu Picchu ruins. So you’ll save in train fare but you’ll spend on hotel and food. By the way, Aguas Calientes is way more organized now than it was, back in 1999, but with higher prices. Lodging costs at least 12 soles per person (about 4 dollars) with shared bathroom. If you want a private bathroom, you’ll have to cough up 20 to 30 soles per person. There are no menu under 12 soles -in Cuzco, you can find a lunch menu for 5 soles-; one hour of internet costs 4 or 5 soles, way too expensive. In Puno, for example, I paid 1 sol for one hour of very fine internet connection. In Cuzco, you can find decent internet cafes for 1.5 soles in the center of the town, and even less in further areas.

Those who have read this blog before already know that I find absolutely reasonable that tourist destinations seek to raise the expenses of tourists. In fact, this is one of the few ways to diminish the weight of leakage and to make the tourism-generated incomes really worth it for the country. But, I’m afraid, in many cases, mediocre services are being overpriced in Cuzco. The case of the train is noticeable: to go to Machu Picchu, you have no choice but to use this monopolic service, the cost will be somewhere around 40 and 66 dollars, since the cheaper train forces you to spend two nights in Aguas Calientes town, which has gotten expensive.

As an argentinean, I’m used to the fact that tourism ‘enterpreneurs’ raise prices considerably during vacations time, so the truth is that what I found in Cuzco did not surprise me too much. I have to point out the fact that the cost of visiting this city has gone up substantially, not so much on the supply and demand side, but for the peruvian government’s decision to turn this place into an international tourism elite location, with high costs and good infraestructure. Of course, this expense on the improvement of the provision of water, electricy, etc. runs on the government’s count and on the taxes paid by the peruvians.

The high prices scheme only reduces leakage if most of the money that tourists spend on tours and other items is collected by peruvian companies. And this is what happens here, since there is no presence of multinational corporations. This did surprise me, indeed, since I expected the presence of large foreign companies in the Cuzco market. Does anyone know if this is so for a reason and if there is any specific government policy that prevents or obstructs the arrival of foreign companies? In the rest of the country you can find Sheraton hotels, Mc Donald’s, the list goes on.

The price raise in Cuzco has a direct consequence on latin american backpackers, which have serious difficulties to pay the hich price of the tours. On the private sector side, the city still offers cheap alternatives, lodging for 8 soles -less than 3 dollars- the night, and lunch menu for only 5 soles, drink included. If Cuzco has become susbstantially more expensive, it’s because the government has decided to reposition the place as a selected destination.

So, now you know it: if you plan on visiting Machu Picchu by train, count on spending from 60 to 90 dollars for the tour, which takes about five hours. If you want to do the inca trail, count on spending 150 or 200 dollars. Add the costs of food, hotels -starting from 8 soles, up to 25 soles if you want private bathroom- and other tours. Do not miss the valle Sagrado tour, it costs 20 soles, don’t pay more, and the City tour costs about 12 soles.

No one questions Cuzco and Machu Picchu are beautiful places to visit once and again. In fact, I’m here for the second time. Unfortunately, my pocket knows little about aesthetics and beauty.

I still have a lot more things to publish on previous destinations and a few more tips on visiting Cuzco. I suppose I will publish them when I get to Lima, in a couple of days. By the way, we managed to bypass the blocking of the roads in Puno. At least, something good.

Let’s say it, Puno has had a bad reputation among the backpackers. That the city is not very nice, that it’s dangerous, that it’s awfully cold, that it’s complicated to find a hotel with hot water…

But all these ‘reasons’ are not so true anymore: in the last years, Puno has shown an interesting evolution. Fist, there is a bus terminal -the last time I visited Puno, in 1999, it was impossible to know where in the city, the bus left you. Second, the lake port looks very neat, the boats that do the tour have lifesaver vests -yes, believe or not, before they didn’t have them. Third, the city has many more restaurants and bars that are good to escape from the chilly weather -well, the weather isn’t supposed to change too, right?

One more interesting thing: Puno is really cheap to visit. A tour to the Uros islands takes the whole morning and costs 10 soles -around 3 dollars. The tour that includes Taquile-Amantaní-Uros cost 30 soles, less than 10 dollars. And, really, in any case, it’s a great tour any visitor will truly enjoy. As you can see, without much suffering, compared to the high cost of visiting Cuzco.

I think that the strategy of Puno is to position itself as the second important touristic destination in the zone, right behind Cuzco. They still have a long way to go, but some results are already noticeable. There’s a tourist guide of Puno, put together by the official sector, with a description of local attractions, mostly centered in the colonial legacy, such as churchs, convents, etc.

About the hotels, Puno has a good number of choices, but you still cannot get hot water 24 hours a day. This is usually limited to a few hours a day. From 6 to 10 in the morning and from 6 to 10 at night. In our case, we stayed at Hotel Los Uros -I promise to look up the address later- that charged 40 soles (less than 13 dollars) the double with private bathroom. Not bad, but the truth is that for that money we’ve seen better hotels in other cities.

If you’re thinking about going to Cuzco and want to add another location within Peru, Puno is an excellent choice that, for now -and, hopefully, for a long time- has a very reasonable cost. From Cuzco you can take a semi-bed bus for only 20 soles -less than seven dollars- It’s a 9 hour ride. Think 2 or 3 days of permanence to visit the local attractions. About safety, we didn’t have any problem, but many people along the way told us that they were robbed in Juliaca, the city where Puno’s airport is located. So, beware.

The floating islands of Lake Titicaca, created and maintained by the Uros for many centuries, are a must-see location for all the tourists that visit Puno at the south region of Peru. The tour takes about three hours, including the boat ride, and costs around 10 soles (three dollars) plus a 2 soles fee to enter the place. A visit to the Uros islands is one of the most interesting examples of “ethnic tourism”, which Dean McCannell talked about in his book The Tourist, in 1976.

Identity, in a tourist background, turns into another merchandise, able to be traded in the global market. Uros, practically, live thanks to the visits of tourists, to whom they try to sell -very insistently- their handcrafts, totora boat rides and even picture posings. In between, there are the agreements with tourism agencies which define which islands will be visited, depending on the agency. Although, since there are over 20 islands in total, it’s very unlikely to visit them all.
One of the most interesting things in these islands is that they’re entirely made of totora reeds, which abound in the zone. Despite this, the ‘ground’ is solid and it constitutes a base not only to uros homes but to landscape sightseeing places, small museums and, of course, crafts selling stands. Despite the excessive commercial environment in the area, the tour to these islands turns out to be really interesting, thanks to its original landscape. By the way, the local government of Puno usually inspectionates the islands so that they keep its totora ground in good conditions for tourism.

Now that I found a cyber cafe with a fast internet connection, here in Puno, and the PCs have USB ports, I am uploading some pictures, although I still have over 200 more, which for now I will store in a cd. Besides, I still have many more things left on Puno and the Uros islands, that I hope to write about in another post. But now, the bus to Cuzco is awaiting. I hope the road blocking in the Puno-Juliaca route will not affect us, otherwise I guess I will beat my own record on number of blocked roads in just 3 days.