The first sound I heard in the morning was a cockerel crowing – it has been a while since I was up early enough to hear that sound! We were up by 6 am so we could eat breakfast and climb to the Ollanta ruins before noon, when we had to catch a train. We walked through the early morning, cobble-stoned streets as the vendors set up their stalls. The sun was coming up over the mountains behind us and slowly lighting the terraces above. There were 200 Inca stone steps leading up through the terraces. We climbed slowly with Boo trying to make us carry her the whole way. At the top, the views were spectacular. The fortress ruins spread out to both sides and the roofs of Ollantaytambo below were flooded with sunlight. Mountain peaks rose all around.
None of this effected Boo, who announced, “I have to poop!” Inca toilets are not well demarcated, and I don’t think the tourists or the Peruvian government would appreciate us using them anyway. So I ran down the 200 stairs with her (you don't tell a 3-year old, "Wait!"). Of course, the toilet at the bottom had no toilet paper and no running water and E.J. had our toilet paper in the backpack. Just as well I was raised in Malawi – hello leaves! After that little jaunt, we hiked back up the 200 stairs, Boo panting and puffing.
At the top, once more with the rest of the family, we saw the unfinished Temple of the Sun, walked along the wall through the fortress, and then roved in and out of the maze of walls and foundations. Above the back fortress wall, our guide book said there was a path to the Intihuatana where the Incas used to trace the path of the sun. Except there were 2 paths and we weren’t quite sure which we should take. I started up one to see if it was the right path. It was a challenge to keep to the faint path and every time I would climb over a rise, I expected to see some evidence that this was the path I needed. The path just continued meandering through the short brush, almost straight up the hillside. There was no way that Boo would be able to climb this, so I thought I had better quickly find something to have made my effort worthwhile, then start back again. Eventually, I found a wall with 3 indentations, but it seems that everyone is as stumped as me as to its original use. Needless to say, this interesting “discovery” of mine was not the Intihuatana – that must have been up the other path. Nonetheless, I needed evidence that I had found something, so I took a self-portrait with the camera. I am not as practiced as E.J. at taking these, so we now have a close up picture of me frowning at the camera.
This done, I ran back down to join E.J. and the children. Half way down, I heard Scooter calling me. Looking around, I found him on the hillside and I crawled across to where he was, snagging myself on various thorns. Given the faintness of the trail I had been following, I thought he might well be on a better path. He wasn’t on any path. We had to pick our way through prickly succulents and over crumbling dirt and down shale-like rocks, all precariously balanced on a steep hillside, until we found the path again. E.J. and Boo had climbed up onto the back fortress wall, and were waiting for us. They were both very annoyed that first I had disappeared and then Scooter had followed. They were waiting for us to report back. We were running out of time, so I gave one last longing look up the other path before following everyone down into the fortress and then down the 200 stairs. We packed our bags, checked out, and jogged along the dirt road that led from our hostal to the train station.
At the train station, we waited in a crowd of other tourists (Peruvians travelled in a different car reserved only for them). I could hear accents and languages from all over the world – Australia, South Africa, Japan, Germany, Canada… There were older couples, some mixed-gender groups, and many young men, but no families with little children. We did receive a number of strange looks. We thought that we could sit anywhere, so we went and sat up front. We were the first to board, so it caused quite a disturbance when a Russian came up and insisted the Canadians across the aisle were in their seats. They said no big deal but we were in their seats. And so we trooped back through all the people waiting to find their seats to find ours at the back of the car. Once settled, we dug out our bread and cheese and ate while we watched the mountains pass by on one or the other side. We rode alongside the Urubamba River the whole way. There were huge boulders in the water, making the water thunder and splash. Tree-covered mountains and individual peaks rose all around dotted with an occasional village or Inca ruin. E.J. and I took turns with the camera while the children read books, talked, and played. The Germans and Americans across the aisle enjoyed the children's chatter while they drank beers.
The train slowly pulled up alongside the long platform at Aguas Calientes. Souvenir shops, restaurants, laundry service businesses, spas, hotels and Internet cafes lined the platform. Tourists dressed in the latest hiking gear sat outside all the cafes and restaurants, talking and eating, while more walked along the platform in droves. The noise and bustle were overwhelming. We wandered over the tracks and up a short street into the main square. There were more tourist-attracting businesses lining the square, which had a huge statue of an Inca at its centre. But above these were incredible peaks looming over the tiny village. Many people approached us, asking us to stay at this hotel or visit that spa or eat at such-and-such restaurant. After we sat down on a bench and dug out our reservation information, we nabbed the next person to approach us and asked where the Hotel Machu Picchu was. It was almost exactly where we had disembarked from the train. It was a lovely hotel – new like everything else in the village. We sat on a balcony overlooking the river and ate a snack. The children talked incessantly, in high-pitched voices, to the resident parrot in the central courtyard. I had to tell Scooter to stop it after a while, because I couldn’t stand the thought of him saying, “Polly want a cracker?” one more time.
We did have to venture out into the village again, so after giving the concierge our dirty laundry and changing into flip flops (ah, the relief of removing constricting tennis shoes/hiking boots), we left the sanctuary of the hotel. We found a bank and even managed to take out some money (finally!), then used it all up buying tickets for the next day’s trip to Machu Picchu. There was more to the village than the train platform area and the main square, but not much. There was a vendor’s market on several floors going up the hillside next to the river, and a maze of narrow alleys on the other side of the market, all lined with tourist attractions. Everywhere, there were wall-to-wall tourists. Vendors sold hats, gloves, scarves, etc – all the same as what we saw in Pisac and Ollanta – but at twice the price. And, it didn’t feel as necessary to shop for wool clothing when the weather was balmy, as opposed to freezing (Aguas Calientes is at a lower altitude than Cusco, Pisac and Ollanta).
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