Today we’re stepping back in time, to an era when travel was sedate and luxurious, where the upper classes traversed large distances in style. However, time is not our friend this morning once more, with another 5.30am start, so we ease ourselves downstairs for breakfast before Jaime and Ciro pick us up at 7am, and take us to Cusco’s Wanchaq station for the Titicaca train, a luxurious, old-fashioned Pullman affair, taking ten hours to journey more than 350km across the High Andes.
Ready to go
At 7.53 on the dot we trundle out of the station and make our way slowly through the outskirts of the city, past the airport. After about an hour we’re in the countryside, winding our way through a huge valley along the Urubamba river. We have coffee on board and then make our way to the bar at the back of the train, with its open viewing terrace for spectacular views of the landscape, the track vanishing behind us.
Our relaxing, enjoyable views are interrupted at 10.30 when all the other guests are invited back for a welcome drink and traditional entertainment followed by a fashion show accompanied by a live rock band complete with squealing guitar solos. They then break into a deafening rock’n’roll medley of ‘Johnny Be Good’ and ‘La Bamba’ much to everyone’s bemusement and force a number of poor, unsuspecting passengers to join in a conga line dance around the carriage which seems to go on forever.
When they break into ‘Happy Birthday’ and present a cake to one traveller and then announce they’ve still got a full selection of traditional Cusco songs still to perform, Coman and I make a swift exit and return to the quietness of our dining carriage. There’s only so much we can take!
View from the train
Outside, it’s another beautiful day of blue skies and sunshine with great visibility, perfect for the sights that unfold. We pull through dusty little towns far from any tourist trail and see dramatic plains, canyons and mountains. In the fields people are working and around every bend is another photo-worthy view. Little villages pass by, with San Pedro pointed out to us by an on-board announcement as a popular spot for locals due to its natural hot springs and waters reaching 60 degrees.
After a few hours of river valley landscapes we’re up into the Altiplano, a more rugged grassland that’s variously reminiscent of the Scottish highlands, the west of Ireland and the vast expanses of Iceland in summer. It’s absolutely breathtaking, literally as at 4390 metres above sea level, we pull into the hamlet of La Raya for a ten minute stop under the shadow of Chamboya, a mountain whose peak is over 5400 metres. The air is very thin up here.
We all disembark and take photos of the train on the tracks, the little church and the local women selling wares, a number of our fellow travellers purchasing scarves and throws. The inhabitants of these remote places rely on these once-daily trains coming through, as they have done for generations. It feels a little like the Wild West of a century ago, when the railroad came to town.
Stopping at La Raya
Back on board our table has been dressed for lunch and as we settle back into our comfortable seats we are served an aperitif of pisco sours. Lunch continues with a silver service delivery of potato and herb soup, quinotto and vegetables, chocolate tart and Chilean chardonnay, all accompanied by piped light entertainment muzak as we gaze upon the unfolding scenery.
The rolling grasslands are fringed by snow-capped mountains with glaciers in the distance, while little huts dot the landscape with herds of llamas roaming the Andean savannah and towns sitting few and far between. Later on as we roll through the wide yellow grasses of the high Altiplano we even see white flamingos in the lakes.
After lunch people fall into an afternoon slumber; the wine, sunshine and rolling scenery having a soporific effect. Around 2.30 we pass through the town of Ayaviri, about two thirds of the way through our journey. It’s a remote and desolate urban sprawl, mostly concrete and exposed brick with thatched roofs and adobe huts as well. Older locals wave back when I smile and wave hello from the train but one young male, maybe 15 years old, sticks his middle finger up and gestures with aggrieved passion at me, his expectations for the future in this beautiful wilderness no doubt very different from the charmed wonders we have been enjoying.
Crossing the Altiplano
Beyond the town stretch vast plains like the grasslands of the Mid West. Little streams trickle through the dry expanses, awaiting the rainy season still two months away. Occasional herds of cattle and abandoned buildings pepper the flatlands, the mountains flanking the horizon on either side.
As the afternoon heat builds we move to the bar carriage with its open back to get a breeze and enjoy the views. As if we’ve not been served enough booze by this point, the altitude doubling its potent effects, we’re then treated to a lesson in how to make the perfect pisco sour.
The bartender asks for a volunteer to demonstrate what we’ve learnt and before he knows it I’ve nominated Coman and he’s behind the bar shaking for all he’s worth. The end result is pretty decent, so much so that we’ve soon located the selfie stick and are posing like eejits at the back of the train.
Riding the rails
As we get ever closer to our final destination of Puno, on the banks of Lake Titicaca, the peaks get smaller and the grasslands wider, becoming a huge plain high above sea level, far removed from the usual lives those of us lucky enough to be aboard the train lead in our day to day existence.
At 4.30pm we pass through a huge, dusty, unfinished city, called Juliaca, its poor, slum-like streets with unpaved roads, half-built buildings, litter and traffic reminding us more of the poverty-stricken urban sprawls of India and Africa than the Peru we’ve seen to date. The train passes slowly through the heart of a vast market, the stalls close enough to touch from the train windows, selling mountains of junk that we in the affluent West throw away without thinking. It’s hugely sobering, but we see a different, more affluent side to the city a couple of days later, illustrating you really can’t judge anything just on first impressions.
As we leave the urban sprawl, high tea is served with tiny sandwiches and sweet cakes served on fine china, reinforcing the privileged life that we lead once more. The city recedes back into open grassland, dark clouds on the western horizon occluding the setting sun, and as the temperature drops we start gathering our belongings ready for our destination, Puno, further down the track.
Rolling through Juliaca
It’s gone 6.30 and pitch black by the time we arrive into Puno’s station, the fabled turquoise blue of the lake rendered invisible in the darkness. It’s taken almost as long to travel the 350kms across the Andes as it took to fly from London to Lima, and like that journey we’re tired, dehydrated and slightly hungover as we pull into town; the railway tracks taking us through the heart of the city, our train sharing the main roads with traffic.
We’re met by our Titicaca guide, Willy, and driven through the dark streets to the Casa Andina Premium Hotel, right by the lake. Exhausted we drop our bags in the room and, deciding that going to bed now will do us no favours later, choose to power through a little longer.
Neither of us have had a decent night’s sleep in over a week and we’re both feeling bizarrely unsteady on our feet, a swaying, rocking motion which must be the residual effect of spending a full day on a train. It’s compounded by the effects of altitude which are kicking in at 3800 metres above sea level with shortness of breath, light headedness and a headache. We sit in the rather basic restaurant feeling distinctly peculiar.
All we can manage to do is half-heartedly share a quinoa burger and then I have to lie down to stop the weird combination of travel sickness and altitude sickness. A bath helps restore a bit of equilibrium and we crawl thankfully into bed, hoping it will have passed by the morning.
