Fortunately we booked our Machu Picchu tickets for the weekend, during which the strikers took a brief reprieve from their mayhem-making. (Our visit was amazing and we’ll document it in full within the next week.) We exited our train in Ollantaytambo this morning only to be greeted by a small legion of riot police. Apparently things are flaring back up now that the work week has returned. The demonstrators marching on the Plaza De Armas in Cusco around noon were chanting something about Machu Picchu, but our rudimentary Spanish didn’t allow us to decipher what it was. The country loses $500K each day Machu Picchu is closed, so they must have their sights set on hitting where it hurts.
We are boarding a bus for the 12-hour ride to Nazca where we hope to fly over the lines tomorrow morning before heading on to Lima in the afternoon. The ride took one American couple 22 hours last week when they got caught in the middle of the blockades. Their group of travelers actually took a few hostages from amongst the protestors before things resolved. Madness.
