Ollantaytambo

We stepped out of the collectivo in front of the local mercado and took a moment to do a 360, both so we could take in the sites and to get our bearings and find out which way to our home away from home. Our hostal, Hostal Chaska Wasi, turned out to be very easy to find. There are really only 2 streets in Ollantaytambo which cars can drive on, one into the plaza, and one out. Our lovely little place was up one of the small pedestrian streets radiating out from the plaza. Before we left the plaza, we were already charmed.

First off, there was no one shouting at us offering massages, taxis, or paintings. Secondly, the town is located in a very small valley that sprouts off of the main Sacred Valley, and on both sides large mountains rise above Ollantaytambo. Across Rio Urumbamba we could see towering snow capped peaks with just a few clouds gathered at the top.

Have I mentioned the weather yet?? It has been amazing! As I know you have all heard, Peru has been experiencing the worst flooding in 15 years since January thanks to El niño (such a benign name for such a horrible phenomenon), and some of the worst rains actually came last week, with additional flooding throughout the Sacred Valley. But so far all we have had is sun. The highs are supposed to be in the 60s, but at this high of an elevation it feels more like 80, and we have been loving getting some sun on our pale scientist bodies. This seems to be a trend for our trips, if you've read our other posts you will remember that when we were in Ireland I actually managed to get sunburned because it was so sunny!

So now back across the Atlantic from Ireland, and across the South American continent. In addition to the location, Ollantaytambo itself is very charming. The narrow streets are surrounded by Inca walls which merge into walls of more modern houses which have been built on top of them, and down the middle of the streets run little streams.

Our room turned out to be equally charming, especially at a rate of 50 nuevo soles (remember 2.8 nuevo soles =$1). It looked out on the courtyard, and had a small bathroom with lukewarm water. Best of all everything was very clean. We were glad to see we had chosen a good place to to stay, and we set out to buy some sunscreen (new Spanish word learned, blockador).

When we returned from our little outing, during which I am still convinced we got completely ripped off on the tiny bottle of spf 60 sunscreen, we were unable to unlock the door to our room. I went to ask the owner of the hostal for some help, and he came and gave it his best, which unfortunately was not quite good enough. Luckily the window had been left unlocked, and we slid it aside and I climbed in. Once I had opened it from the inside he tried to get the key to work, but to no avail. It turns out that his daughter is in charge of most of the day to day things, and she was out of town for the night. He then went on to tell us that it was "bastante seguro" and we should just leave the door unlocked. This means that it is "secure enough". It was the enough part that concerned us, so we left the door locked the entire time and entered through the window.

After that small hiccup we were off to dinner. We have decided to post later about everything we have eaten, because there has been a lot, and it has been delicious, and we have diligently taken pictures of it all, so you will just have to wait patiently.

We followed up dinner with a whopping 13 hours of sleep, from 7 pm to 8 am. Apparently all of the travelling wore us out. Ryan was the first one up, and when he went to wash his hands he noticed nothing came out of the tap; the entire town was out of water.

So after quickly getting ready sans water (luckily we had a little bit of purified water to brush our teeth with), we were off to breakfast and the ruins. First we ate at a small restaurant in the main square that donates all of the proceeds to a women and children's charity in the area, before heading towards the ruins. On the way we crossed a bridge that was about 50 feet above the water, and held up by sandbags. No joke, pictures will follow. I am very glad that we did not cross over that in a tour bus like a lot of other people we saw that day.

At the bottom we purchased our boleto turistico, which includes many of the sites around Cusco. It cost us 130 soles each (gulp). They could have cost only 70 soles if we had an International Student ID card, but we had calculated it out and with the cost of the card we would not have been able to save anything overall, and ultimately we are lazy.

The ruins at Ollantaytambo were breathtaking. A few terraces at the base lead up the mountain side to the temple of the sun, where giant stones over 15 feet tall are joined together without mortar to make a wall with little nubs sticking out of it. There were also several buildings on the site that were built earlier in the Incan empire or in preincan times, and it was very interesting to see the evolution from small rough stones haphazardly stuck together with mortar to 15 foot tall stones cut to perfectly complement one another. From there we walked up behind the ruins for a ways, following a sign in Quechua which we could not understand. Exploring is half the fun, but it didn't seem quite as fun when we were 3/4 of the way up the mountain and the sun was beating down on us with no shade in site, so we quickly hurried back down, but not without first taking several pictures of the amazing views up and down the sacred valley from our perch. While up high we also saw that the ruins scattered across the opposite mountainside appeared to be accessible by footpath, and we decided to check them out. After viewing the amazing network of fountains at the bottom of the Ollantaytambo ruins, we headed across town in search of the other trail just in time to miss the buses full of tourists on the package sacred valley tour (another trend of our trips as you will see).

Going across to the other side turned out to be a great idea. We found the small trail and hand painted sign between 2 houses, and started up the hill past a very portly pig. The trail led much higher than the main ruins (the ones you have to pay for) on the other side, and the views were even more breathtaking. Luckily, when we started out the sun was on the right side of the mountain and we were in the shade. We followed the paths up with surprisingly little gasping for the 9,000 foot altitude and visited 5 different sites of ruins without seeing a single other person the entire time. They appeared to be pre or early Incan because of the stonework, but we will have to look them up in more detail when we get back to the states.

So far we have had no altitude sickness, despite Cusco being at 12,000 ft and my history of horrible altitude sickness at an alititude of 8000 feet. I believe it is unanimous that acetazolamide is a miracle drug, although all miracles come at a cost. As mentioned yesterday, we have been making quite a few trips to the bathroom. In addition, the medication can causeparesthesias aka tingling in the extremities. For us, can means does, and we both have half a dozen or so bouts of tingling each day that last about half an hour each. Some times its subtle, but sometimes it is a little more pins and needles like. Ryan is going to take his last dose tonight, the earliest night possible according to the dosing schedule. For me, the benefits outweigh the tingling, and I am going to take it one more day before calling it quites just to be safe.

After our hike we went back to collect our bags and pay for our room at Hostal Chaska Wasi. Our own room, with private bath and lukewarm water ended up costing 40 soles (about $16), whether this was because he choose to give us a discount since the key didn't work, or due to miscommunication between him and his daughter is anyone's guess, but we did truly enjoy our stay and he was a very nice man.

To head back to Cusco we grabbed a combi in front of the mercado. We were lucky to be some of the first people on, and we snagged the front seats so we could see the beautiful views. This turned out to be one of the best decisions we have ever made since about 12 people jammed into the back of the minivan before we took off. Every time we stopped along the way to let someone off of the collectivo, 2 more people would take their place, so that by the end there were almost 20 people jammed into the tiny minivan.

In Urubamba we were fortunate to catch a shared taxi for just 7 soles each. When we climbed into the back seat we squished all the way to the side, expecting to sit 5 across, but he left when there were only 3 of us in the back, and 1 woman in front. It was luxurious, and we were even able to put our bags in the back instead of squishing them on our laps!

Once we arrived in Cusco we walked to our hostal, Walk on INN (cue cheesy laughter). This turned out to be a much different establishment than Chaska wasi. When we arrived we had to push a button to be buzzed in, and they made copies of both our passports. It is costing us 70 soles a night, but it is very safe, the water can be turned up to scalding, and they offer us all the tea we can drink (I don't think they know who they are dealing with, Ryan is at 5 cups tonight and counting, I am at 3). After checking out we wandered around Cusco for a bit, ate lots of street food, including this odd liquid jello like drink, had dinner, and worked out details for our Tuesday trip to Pisac.