Cusco/Travel to Ollantaytambo

We had a very good sleep before having breakfast and boarding a bus on route to our final town, Ollantaytambo, before the start of the Inca trail.

We made an initial stop at ‘white Christ’, a white statue of Jesus overlooking Cusco which had some spectacular views over the city.

We then jumped back on the bus and made our way to the town of Ccaccaccollo, which is a community supported by G Adventures since 2005. This community is part of G Adventures Planeterra program which helps to provide funds to the community. There are around 650 people in the community, who speak quechua (the native language in the Andes). The community is mostly made up of women who do a lot of weaving as their husbands are porters on the Inca trail. Girls in the community usually learn weaving patterns from 4 years old. After feeding alpacas, we observed the entire weaving process from examining the raw wool (llama, alpaca and vicuana), watching it be washed in natural soap from a root, seeing how the different coloured dyes are made from natural plants/minerals (and by adding lime and sulfur to natural minerals from cactus plants) and then the dying of the wool by boiling the dye and then soaking the wool in the coloured water. It was an amazing experience to seeing the entire process and Gab got a keepsake alpaca beanie from their market stall which will come in handy for nights on the Inca trail! Gab enjoyed a tea which was a mixture of different plants including eculaptys. The support from G Adventures will go towards building a secondary school in the community (currently students walk hours to and from school every day).

We then boarded the bus to Ollantaytambo and checked into our hotel before grabbing a quick lunch with some of the group and exploring the small town.

After this, we went back to the hotel to chill out. Gab had a bit of rest whilst Daniel played cards with some of the group.

We then headed out to pick up a few last minute things for the trek tomorrow and then had a delicious dinner with the group and we had alpaca wood fired pizza which was delicious! :)
Time for bed, a big few days coming up!Okumaya devam et