Wednesday 30th January – Pisac and
Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley.
Travelled by minibus via the
ruins at Tombomachay to the Sacred Valley. It was raining heavily this morning
but we still got to see the Temple of the Water in all its glory. We actually
missed being hassled by souvenir sellers – as they were huddled under blue plastic
sheets to keep out of the rain!
After this we went to another
site above the market town of Pisac followed by shopping in the market. The
kids bought souvenirs and Nesta bought a bag and some silver earrings.
Lunch was in a picturesque
restaurant where they had Llamas in the garden (an obvious photo shoot
opportunity!)
In the afternoon we went to
the temple fortress at Ollantaytambo. Lots of steep steps, so Ian decided he
would wait at the bottom! The temple was never finished by the Incas. This can
be seen by the fact that lumps of stone where they attached ropes to haul up
the giant slabs are still showing. These would have been sheared off if the
building had been completed.
We stayed that night in the
Hotel Pakaritampu, 5 mins from both the town and railway station, and there
were lots of humming birds in the garden. Nesta took so many photos of them
that the battery in her camera ran out (and she had left the spare battery in
the hotel in Cusco, where we were going back to later in the week)…
Silvia joined us for an
evening meal in a local restaurant. The food wasn’t brilliant, but the company
was and the “translations” from Spanish into English on the menu were
hysterical. For example, smoked trout was translated as “trout sweat”. Rebecca
took one of the menus as a reminder!
On the walk back to the
hotel, the night was clear and the stars were lovely. We even saw the “southern
cross”.
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