Exploring Ollantaytambo, food, hiking the countryside, Punku Punku

Day 3: April 11, 2013 7:13 PM

I made it through the shower. Twice now, actually! 

I'm realizing that although it was a pain in the ass to get here, the more I see of this place, the more worth it, it becomes.

After I wrote yesterday, we went out for a walk to the north of our hostal. We came across a library, which had two small rooms: one with several computers (kids and adults using facebook, and playing games) and one with books. Feeling out of place, we left and kept walking. Ollanta (that's what Ollantaytambo is called for short) has a stray dog problem too, it seems. We saw lots of locals in traditional attire. Some said "Buenas tardes" and were friendly. We found a bench to rest, overlooking what I thought was the Urubamba River (but later found out it's a smaller rover that runs into that). It was peaceful and quiet there, and I was finally enjoying Peru.

Sitting on a bench overlooking a river on a quiet street in Ollantaytambo.

We went to dinner at this place called Huatacay, just below our hostal. We hadn't eaten much since we had some french toast sticks at Burger King back in Wisconsin on our way to Chicago O'Hare! Huatacay specializes in Peruvian cuisine, so it was hard for me to find something familiar. I ordered corn on the cob and french fries. What I GOT was this gigantic corn on a cob (the kernels were bigger than my thumb), and some things that were maybe potatoes, definitely not french fries. So I asked again for papas fritas and got some, kind of (they were close to what I expected this time, at least). 

Giant corn on the cob!

Adam was more adventurous and got some kind of vegetable plate. We don't really know what vegetables they were except for some carrots. 

Anyway, we got full and didn't need to eat for the rest of the day. We were tired and napped again from about 4:30-6:30 pm. 

We spent the evening sitting on the terrace at our hostal overlooking the ruins, getting the Peru phone set up and using the internet on my US phone. We went to bed early, about 8:30 and slept well.

First connection with the outside world via the hostal's wifi using my US android phone.

The view from Hostal Iskay's terrace.

Today, we woke up about 5:30 am. It was so weird when I awoke, looking at the ceiling thinking briefly, "Where am I?" and then remembering, we are here, in Peru!

We went to breakfast by 7:30, and it turns out there was a group on their way to the Inka Trail having breakfast too! I didn't know this right away, but then their guide came in and talked to them, and I thought I recognized him from the Llama Path website (that's the company we will do our trek with). So I asked one of the people if they were on their way to the trail, and then found out that they were with Llama Path. So now I know where we'll be having breakfast next week.

For breakfast, I ate mostly dry cereal and break. I had two cups of coca tea and no experiences to report from that.

Coca tea

After breakfast, we went for a walk and went south to the plaza de armas. Lots of moms were walking their kids to school, and it was so cute. Also, a goat kept bothering Adam. The locals were really getting a kick out of watching him deal with it.

A mother walks her child to school.

Ollantaytambo Plaza de Armas (Central Square)

Adam getting accosted by a goat

I got super tired again though, and we were going to go to the ruins, we even got to the entrance, but I just couldn't do it. We went back to our room and I felt like I could have slept the rest of the day. I ended up sleeping from about 10:45 am to almost 2:00 pm! It was difficult to finally get up, but I didn't want to waste the day so I pushed myself.

We went out and walked to the Heart's Cafe. We had lunch and I finally got some much-needed protein: a chicken, avocado, olive sandwich. We found this really great spot in the cafe where we could watch out a second floor window with great views of the ruins (I could totally see the wall of the six monoliths!!), as well as watching both local traffic and tourist combis & busses try to maneuver narrow cobblestone streets with pedestrians on them. I took some pictures and a video of this.

I was finally able to upload 18 photos to facebook with their stronger internet connection, but it took a long time (like, an hour, for 18 photos). I haven't been able to upload any from our hostal, not even one at a time, unfortunately. 

We decided to check out the easier-access ruins called Punku Punku, which has no entrance fee. To get there, we walked down a longish road with all kinds of homes, to the east corner of the town. Saw some serious poverty there. I saw a little girl wearing a shirt that said "Peace, Love, and ROCK ON!" and I knew that it, along with her jeans, were donated.

Punku Punku was really just a couple of Inca doorways, but beyond that was a trail (actually, it's a section of the Inca Trail "from Inka Pintay to Punku Punku" according to google maps). We decided to see where it went! It took us out into the countryside, past a few country homes (read: very poor), some small fields, and past great views of the mountains. We only saw three other people the whole time. 

One of the Inca doorways at Punku Punku

The trail near Punku Punku outside of Ollantaytambo

Coming to a nice Inca wall along the trail.

At times, my mind would wander to the travel warnings for Americans, and thoughts that realistically we should probably not be out there would creep in. But, it felt so much like the exploring we do in Wisconsin that it was easy to forget any possibility of danger. I never felt unsafe.

There were, of course, some stray dogs. I've learned that the dogs ignore you if you ignore them. Also saw some cows but they were tied up. During some of the hike, we were close to the highway and saw lots of tourists go by in busses and combis. I bet they were jealous and wished they could be out exploring like us!

The trail kind of ended at this wall that was curved and really steep to get up to. That's when I tried to go up and overexerted myself...oops. I had to walk really slowly on the way back to Ollanta town. My face, neck, chest, tops of my legs were all tingly. We found a bench to rest before we got back into town and sat there until the tingling was about 50% gone. I'm not sure whether to attribute the tingling as a side-effect of the medication I'm taking (diamox, to prevent altitude sickness), or to the altitude itself. We are at about 9,000 feet here.

The end of the trail for me. Overexertion comes quickly at this altitude.

Now it's almost 8:30 pm and we are back at our hostal for the night. It was a great day! I really enjoyed freely exploring Punku Punku with no time restraints, no work to think about, nothing but me, Adam and this beautiful place. Today was possibly one of my favorite days of my life.

I think Ollantaytambo was the perfect choice to start our Peru adventure. It feels safe, it's quiet, has a small-town feel, and is easy to navigate on foot. It's also about 2,000 feet lower than Cusco, and that makes a difference!

I'm wondering how my daughter's drum performance went at the school fine arts festival. Nobody has texted me back yet. I'm tired again and about to take my last scheduled diamox pill and go to sleep.