Ollantaytambo and Pisaq
We took the cheapest possible train option to Machu Picchu, which meant that we had to haul ourselves to a town called Ollantaytambo some other way. On our way there we took a bus that just met our night train but on the way back we decided to stay a day in Ollanta. Ollanta is centred around a dusty little square with a train station, its own set of ruins, an artesan market to go with the ruins and not much else. It was very peaceful and felt very local. Our hostel was a nice little place with hammocks and a puppy in the garden and a rooftop patio. We both kind of breathed a sign of relief and declared we were in no great rush to get back to the tourist traps of Cusco.
D. wrote all day and I went to explore the ruins. It felt like Machu Picchu lite, but they were still interesting. There was a huge complex of aqueducts that was my personal favourite. It was also interesting to watch the tourists (of which there were many, they just don't stay the night) because it was clear so many of them were on one of their first tour stops in Peru - lots of people winded due to the altitude. While we never got so climbing lots of steps was exactly easy we were doing a lot better than when we first arrived.
In the evening we went out to find the local poison, chicha. Chicha does not appear to ever be bottled or sold officially but if you've got some to share you put up a broonstick with a rose made out of a red plastic bag and people come and drink in your courtyard or what have you. The place we went was semi-official - they had a sandwich board to go with the flower - and consisted of a room with benches and a video playing in the background. The clientele were mostly men, but there was one older woman in a top hat and me. And of course the servers. One of the men sharing a bench with us tried to offer us beer and we tried to accept or not without causing offense, with mixed results on both sides. It was a quite pleasant evening.
Chicha - which is made from corn - was pink and frothy and tasted more like rhubarb than anything else we could think of. The server came around with a plastic pitcher of it and poured it into big plastic slightly-worse-for-the-wear beer glasses. Our bill for our two big glasses? 35c.
We decided that the next day we would go to Pisaq - another small town with some ruins in the vicinity of Cusco. We got a late start. It was less than an hour and a half away, but required a change of busses part way. Then when we arrived we were hungry so we had lunch. We found a place to stay and were finally ready to set out for the ruins around 3pm.
The guidebook said you could walk, take a bus or take a collectivo to the ruins. A collectivo is a taxi system where you pay a fixed rate per person which is 1/5 to 1/4 of the going rate for a taxi and the driver takes you just as soon as he finds the other 3-4 passengers. It's actually a pretty good system, but we were determind to take the bus.
Around this time I accidentally rubbed my eyes with sunscreen and was half-blind for the next two hours.
The bus dropped us 'one kilometre away' which turned out to be one kilometre from the base of a massive hill we had to climb. We took what must be a local pathway which was a tough climb and pretty scary at times for someone who was half-blind and just a little timid about heights. At the top we had a good look around but we were getting cold because for some stupid reason we hadn't brought the umpteen layers we knew we needed every other day we'd been in the Andes. We persevered and headed across the terraces to try to find the temple of the sun. We ended up on some more really crappy paths and finally gave up due to cold and impending sunset. We could see the collectivos (and one lonely tour bus) down below us, but had no idea how to get there. We took the prudent route and went back to the other end, where the busses dropped people off, because we knew where it was and knew we could follow the road even after dark (though it would be long and cold).
So we trundled along and not too long after we rejoined the main road, we managed to flag down a collectivo. It was probably the size of the older Tercels and already had five passengers in it (three adults and two children) but we squeezed in, with me on D.'s lap. They asked if we were going all the way to Cusco and we said no, just Pisaq - but it sounds like they would have been willing to take us all the way there. The icing on the cake was that when they dropped us in town the driver said it was free which was just the shot to our cynicism we needed.
We had a nice dinner and a good breakfast and headed back to Cusco the next day.
D. wrote all day and I went to explore the ruins. It felt like Machu Picchu lite, but they were still interesting. There was a huge complex of aqueducts that was my personal favourite. It was also interesting to watch the tourists (of which there were many, they just don't stay the night) because it was clear so many of them were on one of their first tour stops in Peru - lots of people winded due to the altitude. While we never got so climbing lots of steps was exactly easy we were doing a lot better than when we first arrived.
In the evening we went out to find the local poison, chicha. Chicha does not appear to ever be bottled or sold officially but if you've got some to share you put up a broonstick with a rose made out of a red plastic bag and people come and drink in your courtyard or what have you. The place we went was semi-official - they had a sandwich board to go with the flower - and consisted of a room with benches and a video playing in the background. The clientele were mostly men, but there was one older woman in a top hat and me. And of course the servers. One of the men sharing a bench with us tried to offer us beer and we tried to accept or not without causing offense, with mixed results on both sides. It was a quite pleasant evening.
Chicha - which is made from corn - was pink and frothy and tasted more like rhubarb than anything else we could think of. The server came around with a plastic pitcher of it and poured it into big plastic slightly-worse-for-the-wear beer glasses. Our bill for our two big glasses? 35c.
We decided that the next day we would go to Pisaq - another small town with some ruins in the vicinity of Cusco. We got a late start. It was less than an hour and a half away, but required a change of busses part way. Then when we arrived we were hungry so we had lunch. We found a place to stay and were finally ready to set out for the ruins around 3pm.
The guidebook said you could walk, take a bus or take a collectivo to the ruins. A collectivo is a taxi system where you pay a fixed rate per person which is 1/5 to 1/4 of the going rate for a taxi and the driver takes you just as soon as he finds the other 3-4 passengers. It's actually a pretty good system, but we were determind to take the bus.
Around this time I accidentally rubbed my eyes with sunscreen and was half-blind for the next two hours.
The bus dropped us 'one kilometre away' which turned out to be one kilometre from the base of a massive hill we had to climb. We took what must be a local pathway which was a tough climb and pretty scary at times for someone who was half-blind and just a little timid about heights. At the top we had a good look around but we were getting cold because for some stupid reason we hadn't brought the umpteen layers we knew we needed every other day we'd been in the Andes. We persevered and headed across the terraces to try to find the temple of the sun. We ended up on some more really crappy paths and finally gave up due to cold and impending sunset. We could see the collectivos (and one lonely tour bus) down below us, but had no idea how to get there. We took the prudent route and went back to the other end, where the busses dropped people off, because we knew where it was and knew we could follow the road even after dark (though it would be long and cold).
So we trundled along and not too long after we rejoined the main road, we managed to flag down a collectivo. It was probably the size of the older Tercels and already had five passengers in it (three adults and two children) but we squeezed in, with me on D.'s lap. They asked if we were going all the way to Cusco and we said no, just Pisaq - but it sounds like they would have been willing to take us all the way there. The icing on the cake was that when they dropped us in town the driver said it was free which was just the shot to our cynicism we needed.
We had a nice dinner and a good breakfast and headed back to Cusco the next day.