Onto Ollantaytambo

Like the Incas trying to escape the Spanish conquistadors, we retreated into the Sacred Valley to a small, old Inca town called, Ollantaytambo, almost two hours from Cuzco. Around mid-morning, we caught a taxi to the central “bus terminal”; that is, a place where mini-vans and Über drivers (minus the Über app) called collectivos congregate. As our taxi pulled-up at the terminal, crowds of men swarmed around our car, all calling out prices to go to Ollantaytambo or Urubamba. For some reason, we thought that it would be much more comfortable getting a car over a crowded mini-van. Though, we really should have considered the size of the car and the size of the other passengers. The car was the size of a match-box, smaller than something Mr. Bean would even drive. Ricky called shotgun and spent two hours with his knees lodged in the dashboard, while Jason rubbed blubber with the oversized Latino guy and his girlfriend in the back seat.

We arrived in Ollantaytambo in the afternoon with plenty of time to explore the small town of eleven streets, four longitudinal and seven parallel. The town is surrounded by imposing mountain ranges and the remnants of Inca ruins. The ruins on Temple Hill, misnamed the Fortress, were actually part of the estate of the Inca Emperor Pachacuti, who also built Machu Picchu. The complex includes a number of terraces and ceremonial structures, including the Temple of the Sun. While at the temple, some teenage girls asked us to pose for a photo with each of them. It was as if we were the latest boyband to come out of Peru X-Factor. Anymore attention and we won't be able to return to our former life!

The maze-like ruins were difficult to work-out, with little signage around the complex. We were like rats with a bad sense of smell in search of cheese. So instead of frantically running all over the place, we asked one of the workers on how to get to one of the temples. He misunderstood the temple we wanted to visit and we ended up on a long expedition up the mountain to the peak. Ricky, who has a phobia of heights, gripped onto whatever he could to prevent himself from sliding off the cliff-face. Although filled with fear, the view from the peak, overlooking the entire town was breath-taking and worth the cuts and scratches from the cacti and gravel goat-track. After climbing down off the edge of the cliff, we rested amongst the family of alpacas. Or as Jason would say “Alpacas, llamas, Aztecs, Incas. Same, same but different”.

In the small town of Ollantaytambo, there are no traffic lights, but there are traffic police armed with a whistle and a baton, which they had stolen from a ping-pong player from the summer Olympics. Some of the traffic police got a bit overzealous with the use of their whistle and it sounded like we had stepped into the final quarter of a netball game. Others seemed less enthusiastic and could barely raise their baton to direct the traffic. The small town was well-worth the stop-over and probably deserved even more time before our next stop.

Next stop: Machu Picchu.Read more