“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 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.”
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