Ollantaytambo Hotels
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A tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas...
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Fiona
We left Cusco and set off for the Sacred Valley, but first stopped at a little village where Gap, our tour company, sponsored a weaving project for the women of the village (the men were all porters for Gap's trips up the Inka Trail). It was interesting to see how they spun the alpaca wool, dyed it and then wove it. Of course, I got roped in to having a go at spinning the wool and incurred the wrath of a little Peruvian woman when I twirled the spindle the wrong way, thus undoing no doubt many hours of her good work. We had the chance to buy some of the hats and things that they had made but they were about 10 times the price of the same stuff we had seen elsewhere so, although we wanted to, we couldn't justify spending the money. Shocker -Richard and Fiona manage to save some money!
On our way to the ruins of an Inkan fortress near Pisac, our next destination, we were treated to spectacular views of the Sacred Valley itself, a beautiful green valley surrounded by mountains. We reached the Inka ruins, which were surrounded by spectacular terraces on the hills, and were taken on a guided tour, which was actually a fairly gruelling hike up and down said hills. Maybe this was payback for us being too lazy to walk the Inka Trail. The ruins had great examples of Inkan architecture and we also saw a number of Inkan tombs in holes on the hillside. The ruins are home to the "hitching post of the sun" but since someone stole part of it, it is now closed. The last part of our tour was a delightful 20 minute uphill hike back to the bus. Thank goodness for the fresh orange juice seller strategically located at the top of the horrible hill!
Next stop was Pisac market. We had timed our arrival in the hope of catching a Catholic mass at the church, because it was one of the few places that mass is said in Quechua, the local language. We had a quick stop for some lovely empanadas and then, pastries in hand, we crowded into the back of the church to discover that we were actually crashing someone's wedding! They didn't seem to mind the crowds too much so we hung around for a while before having a look round the market. It was enormous and we weren´t too impressed with it as most of the stuff looked like tat, although Richard was tempted by a woollen mask but unfortunately it was made for Peruvian not Western head sizes, so we gave up and headed back to the bus.
Next stop was lunch in a beautiful restaurant with a lovely courtyard garden where we felt we could have been in Europe rather than Peru. The food was great and Jane, John, Richard and I treated ourselves to a bottle of white wine and relaxed in the sunshine. Our action packed day continued after lunch with a visit to a chicha brewery. Chicha is a type of beer brewed from corn that is very cheap to make and, with only about 2 glasses, has the power to render you pretty much immobile. We were shown the very basic brewing process and then given some to try. It was rancid. I think I can best describe it as cider that has gone off with a hint of vomit... However, despite the rotten drinks, Richard and Jane did excel at the traditional game that is played while drinking chicha called sapo (or frog), which involves trying to throw large coins into a bureau with different holes worth different amounts. My score was zero, but Richard and Jane were in the thousands!
We finally reached Ollantaytambo where we would be spending the night, but of course we had to climb something else first. There is an Inkan temple overlooking the town so we hiked up there to see the views and to appreciate the amazing highly finished granite blocks at the top and to wonder just how they managed to build it when some of the blocks were the size of a limo and had been transported from the other side of the valley! After a quick rest, we went out for dinner. It is fair to say that Ollantaytambo isn't the gourmet capital of Peru and the choice of restaurants was very limited. The place where we ended up wasn't too bad, but the highlight of the evening was seeing a mouse scramble up the wall right beside our table. This set Loula off into hysterics, so it amused us all greatly when John, who was sitting beside her, then touched her arm making her think the mouse was on her. I have never seen anyone jump so fast and so far in my life! Unfortunately, my dinner can't have been too great as I spent most of the night throwing it back up and feeling generally dreadful, not something that boded well for our journey to Aguas Calientes the next morning...
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