Aguas Calientes, Peru

We arrived in Aguas Calientes by train. Aguas Calientes is at the base of Machu Picchu and is where you stay before or after the climb to the ruins. Again, it is clearly a tourist town but as opposed to Cuzco there were no personal vehicles or even taxis. The only vehicles were buses that took people up to Machu Picchu.

We walked around and explored this town aimlessly as well. Everything pretty much went right up to the streets and all of the restaurants opened onto the street. The people who worked there were always out front trying to get you to come inside by bribbing you with free food or drinks. Instead of "happy hour" several of the places referred to it as "happy days," which I thought was funny. 

I love all of the color that they use, it really makes a difference in the street scene.

Aguas Calientes has a hot springs right above it that we walked up to but as the day goes on the pools get pretty grimy so we didn't go in, but this is a good illustration of where this town is placed right in the Sacred Valley. The surrounding landscape is obviously pretty spectacular and breathtaking. We went to bed pretty early this night because we were taking the 6am train to Machu Picchu to try to catch the sunrise.