This post has a bit of Cinderella in it, because $10,000 private rail car charters are so not in my budget. But sometimes you get lucky.
I was chairing a conference in Peru, and our hosts booked the Inca Princess for the organizers as as part of our group’s visit to Machu Picchu. Also called the Presidential car, the Inca Princess is a private luxury carriage that can be chartered for up to eight people traveling to and from Machu Picchu. The car is affixed on an as-booked basis to Inca Rail’s regularly scheduled trains.
Split among 8 people, the fare breaks down to $1250 per person, roundtrip. That’s roughly five to ten times as much as the executive and first class options on Perurail and on Inca Rail’s regularly scheduled trains — which provide perfectly good service and the same jaw-dropping views. But for those in the market for luxury, the Inca Princess offers one of the world’s great train experiences to one of the world’s great Bucket List destinations.
The Inca Princess is in the same pricey neighborhood as Perurail’s all-luxury and better known Hiram Bingham train. However the experiences are completely different: Riding the Hiram Bingham is like flying on a first-class-only plane: plenty of comfort, shared with strangers. The Inca Princess costs more, but it is like being on your own private small plane with just your friends or family. In addition to the different train experiences, tickets on the Hiram Bingham include the entry fee and guided tour to Machu Picchu. So comparisons are approximate, at best.
Amenities and Features
I boarded the Inca Princess at Ollantaytambo (a town whose name always makes me smile because for some reason I find it fun to say). Waiting on board were a quartet of musicians playing traditional Andean instruments: the quena (wooden flutes. Think El Condor Pasa and you know the sound; Paul Simon used the tune in his song of the same name), hide drums, and chajchas (rattles made of goat or sheep hooves). A steward handed me a glass of champagne, and I settled in for the just-shy-of-two-hour trip past terraced hillsides and canyons that plunged down to the roaring Urubamba (another fun word) River, a tributary of the Amazon.
The car is spacious, decorated with Andean art. Chairs are arranged for lounging or dining. There’s also an el-shaped sofa, a fully-stocked bar, a private restroom, and a balcony where you can hang over the river and take photos. You’ll want to be sure your journey takes place during daylight hours: The views are too good to miss.
After some cocktails, a meal is served, each course prepared by a chef from Lima’s Cordon Bleu (Lima has become an important foodie destination, with a vibrant fusion scene that mixes Asian culinary traditions with local ingredients.) Each course is accompanied by complementary wines. And there’s always a Pisco sour, Peru’s national drink, on tap, though if you haven’t spent a few days acclimating to the altitude, you’ll want to take it easy on the alcohol.
Chat – rest- sip – take pictures – eat – chat- drink – look at views – lean back – repeat. The place we are going — Machu Picchu — was a sanctuary for royalty and priests, a religious center for the most important people in the culture. For just a moment it occurs to me that the treatment on the Inca Princess has turned me into royalty, myself — if only for the two-hour journey. Like Cinderella, the clock (or the train whistle) will at some point chime, and I will go back to my regular world (which isn’t such a bad place either). But for the next two hours, I sit back — and enjoy the dream.
Practicalities
- The Inca Princess can be booked any time of year at Inca Rail
- It boards in Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley, about halfway from Cuzco to Machu Picchu. Trains, buses, and hotel transfers can get you from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo.
- Be careful of the open bar and the freely offered Pisco sours, especially if you haven’t had time to adjust to the altitude.
