Hot Springs II - Machu Picchu

I hate Hot Springs II. With a name like "Hot Springs" in a town whose attraction is actual hot springs, I can only conclude that they get off on watching confused tourists hike up an immense, unnecessary hill, huffing and puffing their way to the medicinal waters of the aguas calientes at the top only to find that their bags and tour guides are waiting in a restaurant by the train station at the bottom. 

By the time we found Hot Springs II (because one wasn’t enough), it was too late to order anything but the pizza without missing our train.

The pizza came quickly and caliente, right out of the oven, but that’s about all they did right. One Pizza had a few juicy mushrooms, soft artichokes, and salty pepperoni-esque sausage swimming in a vat of greasy, grocery-store-bag cheese. The cheese made long, slightly-soggy strings when you tried to pull the slices apart, but there was so much of it that it sloughed off the slices in chunks.

The Meat Lover's had an even mix of sausage, pepperoni, and ham, but it was hard to appreciate anything in the midst of all that cheese. The papery-tasting crust didn't help. 

I walked into Hot Springs II fully prepared to hate it thanks to the stress of finding it, and the pizza only helped me along. Despite the stress, I remained reluctant to bid the beautiful Machu Picchu goodbye, so I guess it’s a good thing Hot Springs II made me a little less inclined to linger.