Surviving Perurail

(endFEB2009) We were heading back from Aguas Calientes, where Machu Picchu is located, on the blue train belonging to Perurail. It was 5pm, and just starting to get dark out.

I nestled in for the three-hour journey ahead of me, ready to go to sleep as soon as I made it to Cusco, because I wanted some sleep before my bus excursion to Ecuador. Very soon I realized that this was not going to happen.

It hadn't been more than thirty minutes when the train began to slow down, coming to a stop. They wouldn't say what was going on, but eventually some tidbits of information were passed along. There were some rocks on the tracks ahead and they would be cleared quickly.

It had been about an hour, and we still hadn't moved. People were beginning to get impatient at the lack of information. 'One more hour. They have to bring in more people to clear the tracks.'

This is how it literally played out until about one AM that morning, as the details seemed to get worse and worse. The crew would continuously tell us 'one more hour' but that got old very fast. Apparently there had been a landslide, and new tracks had to be brought in to repair it.

The people in the train grew restless too, one woman threatening to leave and hike back to Aguas Calientes, her swears directed at the management who could care less. Perurail was the only rail system in Peru, and their monopoly over the railways made them unsympathetic to their passengers. They had hardly any food to offer us, only candy bars and bags of chips, which, grudgingly, they actually had the audacity to charge for! Grumpy and hungry, most of the passengers gave up on the idea of returning to Cusco anytime soon and passed out under seats and in the aisles. 

I met some other cool travelers, who, like me, could not sleep in this situation. So, with management standing right there, we made a video called 'surviving perurail', making fun of how we were stranded, with no food, or help, in the middle of the andes mountains. We laughed and joked and told stories about our lives, and how silly it was that we would be stuck on this train for what turned out to be seven extra hours! The group of us bonded, and when we arrived, at 4AM in Cusco that morning, we dispersed and went our separate ways, never crossing paths again. I still look to find the video 'survivng perurail' on youtube, but the maker, whose name I never learned, hasn't put up yet.