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That’s right. Veto Machu Picchu. South America’s biggest tourist attraction is just that - a tourist attraction. And anywhere you attract tourists, you also attract crooks. No, we weren’t robbed in the classical sense of the word, but we were lied to and taken advantage of. We hope our experience with Machu Picchu will be an eye opener for most of our loyal readers. Furthermore, we hope that some of you will consider alternatives to the Cusco-Machu Picchu trap when planning your South America trip. Not only was Machu Picchu the single most expensive thing we have done on this entire trip, it was also the most expensive. Read on.

In Cusco, the first time you walk around the main plaza and are attacked by the restaurant “representatives” chasing you down to show you that their restaurant has all the same things on their menu as all the others (and the same prices) and offering you the same free pisco sour (a local drink) as all the others - it’s funny. That’s the first time. After the third or fourth time, it’s no longer funny, it’s annoying. Anyway, it usually goes like this: you stop to look at one menu, then all the vultures from all the restaurants on the block line up nearby to show you their menus after you get done with the current one. Yet when you look in the restaurants, no one is eating there. Hmmmm. Minor Annoyance. If you must go to Cusco, however, keep walking to find El Molino, a nice pizza & pasta place a couple of blocks from the main plaza.

Secondly, the cost is a big issue. At S/. 120 (US$40) per person, entrance to Machu Picchu is not cheap. Think about what this is. There are no rides at Machu Picchu like there are at Six Flags (online price per person US$42). This is a bunch of rocks that were once housing people from an ancient civilization, like Mesa Verde National Park, in CO (high season entrance fee per person US$8). The bus ride from Aguas Calientes up the hill to Machu Picchu is optional and extra. Furthermore, unless you are hiking the Inca Trail, you must ride a Perurail train to get to Aguas Calientes. There is no road - you cannot take a bus. You can ride from a closer stop but most people ride from Cusco which costs US$70 per person, round trip. That makes it about US$110 per person to see Machu Picchu. You want a guided tour? That’s extra also. Then they have the nerve to charge S/.0.50 to use the bathroom!? Granted, that’s not much, but your US$40 entrance fee doesn’t even buy a little T.P.! This is a world class attraction for a world class price - where’s the world class service?

Next is the trickery: the old bait-and-switch. In Aguas Calientes, similar to Cusco, there were street vultures luring us into restaurants. At one restaurant, they succeeded by offering us a 20% discount on their menu prices. Since their prices looked about 20% higher than we were used to paying, we figured O.K., it’s a wash. We were hungry, so we went inside and ordered a pizza. When we got the bill, they had knocked S/. 2 off our S/. 28 pizza. Excuse me, but that’s not even 10%! So we complained and they tried to justify it by saying that “oh everyone knows that 20% just means 2 Soles - it’s a local rule”. Total B.S.! Then there was also a Tax of S/. 3 stuck on there (and nowhere else in all of South America do you see tax added on in restaurants - sometimes a table service but that is clearly printed in the menu and you actually get some bread for that). Anyway, it was like they were trying to mark UP the pizza instead of actually discounting it. We went around in circles with them until we suggested that they call the tourist police and see what they had to tell us about the 20% discount. At that point they caved on the 20% but I was too pissed off to start another argument about the tax so I just paid it. I don’t think I’ve seen Meghan get so heated about something in the three years that I’ve known her. I occasionally would throw in something about how I am an engineer and the math was not correct, but she did most of the talking.

Additionally, the guy who sold us our package to Machu Picchu (Walter Alvarez) lied to us in a few ways. We were concerned about being stuck waiting on a tour group when we wanted to get in early to snap some photos of the ruins without people all throughout them. When we expressed this to him (before we paid), he said no problem, there are plenty of guides and so if we want to go up earlier than the rest of the group they will find a guide to go with us - early. WRONG. We went up early (alone), but had to rendezvous with our guide later. Plus we were told maximum group size of 15ish and there were 28 people on our group. This is a bit obscene. I had classes in college smaller than this. Sometimes we couldn’t see the pictures the guide was showing from his book and sometimes we couldn’t hear. Now it could be that other tourists (who didn’t pay) just poached our tour. I have no problem if they want to listen in, but stand at the back - something the guide should have and could have policed a bit better, considering he had all of our names (those who paid) written on a sheet of paper.

Walter also told us that he would provide transportation in Cusco to and from the train station. Oh he got us there all right but when we got back to Cusco after Machu Picchu, he was nowhere to be found and we had to take a cab. Very unprofessional - the cab driver agreed.

It is hard to say that looking back, it was all worth it. Granted the ruins are cool, but if you visit Raqchi and Sacsayhuaman you get to see a lot of the cool stuff of Machu Picchu (and some stuff that Machu Picchu doesn’t have). I might piss off a few readers with this next comment, but I would say that if you tour the above two ruins and buy the postcard of Machu Picchu, you have at least 90% of the experience. In other words, being amongst the ruins of Machu Picchu wasn’t any cooler than being amongst the aforementioned other ruins and those others were a fraction of the cost of Machu Picchu.

And a note for those of you who might want to do the Inca Trail. I learned something very interesting from a British guy who had gone that route and who was bitching quite loudly when I was taking my first pictures. As I had formerly understood it, one of the benefits of taking the Inca Trail is that everyone gets up at 3 AM (on the 4th and final day) to hike the last bit and descend on Machu Picchu before the tour buses arrive - a bonus to make the hike more worthwhile. Apparently a park guard stops the hikers at 5:30 AM at a checkpoint beyond the park so no matter how early they woke up they still can’t beat the first busload of ‘cheaters’ (like yours truly). I cannot imagine how livid I would have been with the situation if I had trudged for 4 days through the rain to have all of my photos come out with other tourists in them.

If I offered weak arguments for the above or I’m otherwise not making sense with my writing, please post questions. It’s too late for proofreading - I’m going to bed. I am probably forgetting something and once Meghan reminds me, I’ll come back and add it.