Machu Picchu for free?!

In September 2008 I heard rumors that they want to raise the entrance fee of Machu Picchu to an 80, or maybe even 100 US$ for next year! For this I now have a contra answer: There is one positive thing about Machu Picchu being disorganized, they are hardly checking our tickets at the entrance. In the afternoons after 13:00h already, it gets ‘worse’ and is it very easy to use the tickets of others to get in. I did it 3 times with a ticket from someone else… Another way to get for free on the site of Machu Picchu, I learned from a girl who used an old small trail to climb the mountain of Machu Picchu on the opposite side as the entrance. She said that early in the morning there was no-one to check this forgotten entrance. Only she also told me that it wasn´t an easy trail to find.

I don´t mind paying an entrance fee if I see improvements around or know that it would help the country, but no-one knows really where this money goes???  Half of all the money that´s generated by the sites around Cusco and Machu Picchu now goes to the government of Cusco and half to Lima to be spread over the country. Only the site of Machu Picchu already generates about 90.000 US$ a day with almost zero (visible) costs (they people who maintain the site have in general a very low salary.

All right, now you have two possible options to enter the site of Machu Picchu without paying, but the entrance fee is not the only cost. You also have to pay 7 US$ to go by bus from Aguas Calientes to the site of Machu Picchu and 7 US$ to go back. You can also walk up and down. To walk up will probably take you about 2 hours from Aguas Calientes and to go down 75 min. I recommend you to follow the walking trail, which cuts the corners of the road.

The entrance at the site opens at 6:00am and the entrance gate for the 4-day Inca Trail, which is about 6 km away from the Sun Gate, opens no earlier than 5:30am, the site closes at 17:00h.

Until this point you have options with zero costs, but now you still have to go by expensive, sometimes difficult to reserve, Chilean owned train company, Peru Rail, or is there another option? Yes, even here there are more options, to spent less money. The first is probably the cheapest, but you need some physical condition; You start by going with public transportation from Cusco to Urubamba and from Urubamba to Ollantaytambo. From Ollantaytambo, which is around km 70 along the railway you take a taxi to km 82 or 88,from where the 4-day Inca trail starts. From this point you walk along the railway until km 110, the location of Machu Picchu Pueblo, or Aguas Calientes.

Another option is to enter through the ‘backdoor´ of Machu Picchu, by taking Public transportation from Cusco to Santa Maria and after fro Santa Maria to Santa Teresa. From Santa Teresa you can walk or go by cheap local train to Aguas Calientes. It´s said that it takes about 8 hours to get in Santa Teresa, but the route through green areas and coffee fields is beautiful and again cheaper than the 4 hour train-ride from Cusco.

Unfortunately it is not aloud anymore for foreigners to use the local trains from Cusco or Ollantaytambo to A.C. However there is a difference in price for the different hours that the trains leave. The most popular hours to leave are the most expensive. In 2008 for example there is/was one interesting way to go by cheaper train to Aguas Calientes. This way consists by leaving Ollantaytambo with the train of 6:10am, arriving in A.C. around 7:38am. If you go now to Machu Picchu, you don´t have to wait a long time in line for the busses to go up, but you are still before the big crowed of people who arrive with the most popular trains, around 11:00am in A.C..  Also the hours between 15:00h and 17:00h, are usually very calm on the site, because most people leave with the trains of 16:00 or 17:00h. If you take the cheaper night-train back, leaving at 21:20h, you will arrive in Ollantaytambo at 22:58 and had one long day on the site of Machu Picchu