Aboard the Belmond Hiram Bingham to Machu Picchu

This story originally appeared ‘The Valley of the Sun’ in Journal No.11

The train chugged at a steady speed of 35 kilometers per hour through the rugged terrain of the Sacred Valley, past grazing cows, an expanse of artichoke fields and the flowing Urubamba River. With each bend, the terrain morphed into something new and unexpected. My mode of transportation, the Belmond Hiram Bingham, a pristinely restored train from the 1920s that is luxury travel at its finest. The convoy is outfitted with a lavish bar and dining cart—both offer plush seating and shiny wooden and brass details—and an observation car, where you can dazzle at the changing scenery and the world passing you by. 

There are a few ways that you can arrive to Machu Picchu, one of them being hiking, which is free—the longest duration is seven days, the shortest, six hours—or by train like the Hiram Bingham or PeruRail. Named after the American archeologist Hiram Bingham III, who rediscovered one of the new wonders of the world in 1911, the train departed in front of the Belmond Hotel Rio Sagrado.

The two and a half hour train ride to Machu Picchu included a multi-course lunch, followed with dinner on the return trip. All of the ingredients are sourced locally and some recent dishes included grilled local paichi fish and for dessert, a creamy coffee cheesecake topped with sesame brittle. One of the highlights of the trip was traveling through the outskirts of the rainforest. The train cut through lush jungly foliage, as we neared Aguas Calientes, the small town that’s the gateway to the ruins.