“Today you are tourists!” The words excited the women in red embroidered shawls.
It’s not a phrase that is said often in Quechua, one of Peru’s indigenous languages.
The 16 women from Huilloc Alto clutched their blue ID cards and train tickets for the Inca Rail service, waiting at the station.
Despite living in the Sacred Valley, many of them had never been on a train let alone visited the Incan city of Machu Picchu.
Their bright red shawls and traditional ‘Montera’ basket hats, full of fabric flowers turned heads. Once aboard the train, they retrieved battered phone cases from under their hats, to take selfies and photos for the family back in Huilloc.
It was a day of many firsts, more than 500 years in the making.
Despite being neighbours to Peru’s biggest tourist attraction, only five per cent of highlanders ever get the chance to visit. Their ancestors built the 15th century fortress and they still speak the language of the Incan stonemasons, but for many Machu Picchu remains a mystery. “My husband has been but not me,” said Josefina Cruz. “I want to see Machu Picchu with my own eyes.”
For many the only way to get to the citadel built by Pachacutec is as a porter on the Inca Trail - a 42 km walking route that finishes at the Sun Gate, overlooking the fort. It’s even rarer for local women to get the chance to visit, with guiding a mostly male-dominated profession.
So, as we passed the backpacks of walkers and guides drying tents on the trail, the “mamas” waved from the train windows.
A ticket for the 90-minute train from Ollantaytambo costs $100 - one way.
Considering the average income per woman selling textiles and weaving workshops to tourists is 1,645 Peruvian Soles (around $800), it’s not an everyday expense.
In fact, many of the ladies joining us from the Awamaki weaving collective were thrilled simply to be “turistas” for the day. Normally their days are spent making textiles out of lama yarn, on traditional backstrap looms. Some still use giant condor bones to guide their intricate work. At almost 4000m altitude Huilloc Alto was far removed from the touristic high street of Aguas Calientes in many ways, the last pueblo on the way to Machu Picchu. A couple brought wool bobbins, to spin yarn as they waited on the train. The concept of a “day off” was not one that translated easily into Quechua.
The purpose of the visit was work as well as pleasure, insisted Josefina, who said she was working on a way to commemorate the trip.
“We will weave it into our blankets,” she said of Machu Picchu. The motifs in Quechuan embroidery are inspired by experiences, and this was a big one.
The scheme to invite the ladies to see Peru’s own World Wonder was devised by the Intrepid group travel company.
It was a fact that these women, who shared a common ancestry with the people who built the Incan were priced out of experiencing their own heritage. It was one of the many unintended consequences of tourism development.
In recent years the Machu Picchu tourism industry has become a symbol for the deep division within Peru. Between urban and rural communities, Lima and Cusco. The Spanish coastal Mestiso Indian highlands. Also the legacy of corruption. At the beginning of the year, the Machu Picchu train was closed by locals protesting a new privatised ticketing system.
In January ticketing for the attraction was handed over by the Peruvian state to private businesses - which promptly upped prices and increased visitor numbers by a third to 5600 daily tourists. Protestors blocked the rails for over a week.
The year before thousands of tourists were trapped at the Machu Picchu trailhead by protests following the arrest of President Pedro Castillo. Though a controversial figure, talking to some of the residents of Cusco and the Peruvian highlands made it clear Castillo still had plenty of support from the rural provinces who distrusted Lima’s coastal elite.
The rails to Machu Picchu as the main artery of tourism excite strong sentiments from Peruvians, not all are negative.
Justina Riquelme Ríos, one of the women from Huilloc, said she had a fascination with the tourist train since she was a girl.
Watching the train she used to imagine what it would be like to join the foreign visitors on their holidays.
“I wanted to think someday I will travel together with the tourists. Sit, eat, and share with them,” said Justina.
Visibly moved, she said it was a long-held dream to experience her home as a tourist. One she had held since she was adopted by the community as an orphan.
“This group of ladies is so lucky to be here,” said Intrepid guide Norma Caller.
As a local Quechua speaker with over 20 years of guiding tourists on the Inca Trail, she said that the project to get the mamas to Machu Picchu had been of special significance to her.
“Just only four months ago this opportunity came up through Intrepid and Awamaki,” she said.
“At that moment I was talking to them, they were jumping with excitement.”
Arranged via the Intrepid Foundation, Norma said the ladies had specifically asked for a female guide as well, so they could ask their questions more freely.
Fellow guide and Quechua speaker Rebecca Huarca Hijillca from Peru’s Canis District never thought she’d see the day that she would be leading a group for Intrepid in her native language.
At the top of the terraces of Machu Picchu, the “old mountain”, looking out towards the smaller peak of Huchuy Picchu, “young mountain”, it was clear the mamas were far more used to the altitude than their slow tourist escorts.
Naturally in their bright red shawls and sombreros, the women were a curiosity to other tourists. This was - mostly - good-natured. Some assumed they were part of the attraction, others asked for selfies. At one point another slipped a 10 Soles note into a mama’s hand in exchange for a photo.
However, it was only those who stopped to ask their story and how the mamas came to visit Machu Picchu who had the full appreciation of the mamas’ excitement.
Being a novelty for the day was part of what was otherwise a positive experience.
It was something my tour group experienced ourselves just a couple of days later at the Parque Arqueologico de Rachi, south of Cusco.
Though a far more modest collection of Incan ruins we were approached by a group from Puno. With some women wearing shawls and brown bowler hats - the local dress from the border region near Bolivia - they asked to take a photo with us.
It was only after the awkward politeness unique to a group of middle-class Canadians, Kiwis and Australians being asked for a favour without understanding why, we noticed the red gilets on some of the guides. On the back read “The Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion”. We learned that they were part of a government programme to take indigenous people to see tourist attractions.
There is an enthusiasm to be and be seen with tourists enjoying Incan heritage.
It was a heartwarming encounter. Especially given the next group of tourists shouted at us for obstructing their photos.
Peru has a history of trying to increase access to heritage and tourism sites. The Intrepid foundation does not have a monopoly on social outreach tourism in Peru.
In fact there is a locals-only train costing 12 Soles ($5.50) to the Machu Picchu pueblo. Entry is subsidised for Peruvians and free on Sundays to Cusqueños with local IDs. However this is still out of reach of some Peruvians and there is a long waiting list for locals, which requires registration a month in advance. It was also one of the many things protestors worried would be lost with the privatisation of the ticketing to the attraction. For some Peruvians, Machu Picchu is still an unfeasible, unaffordable dream. Even for those living within sight of the tourist train.
Having pulled back into the station in Ollantaytambo, it was time for the mamas to return home.
Highlights of the day as Machu Picchu tourists included riding in the Orient-blue tourist carriage, and a buffet with bottomless dessert. Between them, they had taken enough photos of the Inca sun fortress to recreate the day for friends and family members who had stayed in the hills.
“It was the best day,” said Justina on behalf of the group. “We feel like true Incas.”
With that a vertical kilometre or more to climb up the valley before their journey was finished, they carried the memory back into the mountains of Huilloc Alto.
The writer was a guest of Intrepid Travel as part of the Classic Peru itinerary
They were hosted by the Awamaki local business initiative and the village of Huilloc Alto, awamaki.org
Flights were with LATAM via Lima and Santiago de Chile
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