Saturday August 22 to Sunday August 23 - Peru

Not much goes on during the week other than working and the weekends and work week have a fairly different flavor to them right now so I’m breaking at least this posting up into the week days and weekends.

After going to Moray on Friday I had to buy a tourist ticket, which included multiple archeological sites and it was good for only two days. So on Saturday I took the short bus ride over to Ollantaytambo before heading into Cusco for the evening.

Ollantaytambo is one of the better sites to visit in the area around Urubamba and I suspect is one of the main stops for tourists on their way to or from Machu Picchu. The train goes right through Ollantaytambo and the city clearly was prepared for tourists. The main square reminds me of the tourist area of Cusco but on a much smaller scale. They have lots of western places, coffee shops, pizza parlors, etc. And unlike in Urubamba, credit cards are readily accepted. They even have a Kwik-E-Mart!

I did not want to spring for the guided tour so I’m figuring out the place largely on my own and sure I am missing something so Wikipedia can provide you with a better explanation of the site. It is where I got most of my info from.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ollantaytambo

The ruins of Ollantaytambo were built in the middle 15^th century by Emperor Pachacuti as a royal estate. The site includes a series of agricultural terraces, store houses that were built up on the side of the mountains, and a Sun Temple at the top. There were also military barracks at the site but it was primarily used for agricultural and religious purposes. During the Spanish conquest of South America, Ollantaytambo was used as a line of defense by the retreating Inca and as a result the Sun Temple was never finished before they abandoned the site. Very cool to visit and climbing the stairs to the top was probably a very good warm up for Machu Picchu, which I am planning on visiting the next weekend.

After visiting for a few hours I headed out to Cusco for the remainder of the weekend to hang out in the city. I did not get into Cusco until late in the afternoon on Saturday and never did anything that evening other than hang out in the hotel and grab some dinner. Craving pizza as I have not had any since early or mid-June. It was not bad but I’m still craving an actual pizza.

 

On Sunday I went to an art museum and otherwise just did some shopping and spent too much money on myself. On top of that I somehow lost a pair of pants I had just purchased in South Africa, so now I need to go spend more on myself to replace them. Don’t ask how you lose a pair of pants when walking around a city, I will just say that I was not wearing them when they went missing but I did have pants on.

 

Cusco has about half a million people living in it and is the center of tourism in this part of the country. If you are going to Machu Picchu the route goes through Cusco. The central part of the city is geared to tourists and there is a big shopping district around the Plaza de Armas, which is the main square. Every city I have been to seems to be constructed with a main square or park, a central Catholic Church and shopping district. This is true of Cusco, Urubamba, Moray and Ollantaytambo thus far. I spent most of my time last weekend simply walking around Cusco’s narrow streets. Narrow accurately describes some of the streets where are really only wide enough for a car to get down. There are sidewalks but sometimes they are only about 6” wide.

After spending what was probably too much money on myself, buying an alpaca sweater, new larger back pack so I can carry this stuff on the plane, and a few things I picked up in Ollantaytambo, I decided it would be best to get back to Urubamba where I could not buy all this stuff. Additionally my host family, the Ramirez’s, where having a birthday party that evening which I had been invited to.

The language barrier made it a little hard to hang out at the party and my roommate/translator got sick and left early, but I hung out for a while drinking beer and eating Peruvian food. Food which included ginny pig and fish eggs, I have to say neither of which I really liked. They had plenty of big beers and coke in the tall glass bottles, of which I had several of both. But Monday is a school day so I cut it early.