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The boys went in search of the Peru Rail office after breakfast to secure our booking for the trip to Machu Picchu, whilst the girls packed. Packing completed, Derry updated her journal (thanks for the books mum!) and we waited for the boys.......who eventually arrived 15 minutes before our taxi arrived to Ollantaytambo.
The journey into the sacred valley was by now typical - steep climbs followed by spectacular views over cities, fields , snow capped mountains and at every turn 'important' Inca ruins. Always in a taxi, driven with little regard for the correct side of the road, speed bumps or on-coming traffic, with 3 'official' seats in the back, but with 4 crammed in. Lasts ok for an hour but anything longer than that and we're in niggle land!
The views are awesome, we've seen plenty of geography between us over the years but this is different from everything else - the scale of the heights and the fact that the bottom of the valleys are about 2500m to start with!
Arriving in Ollanta ('oyanta') we felt immediately at home, a small town with a really relaxed feel - I guess this is what we expected South America to feel like generally. Fewer street sellers, a central market, and the welcome at the hostal was typically South American - not big smiles, basic English (to match our even more basic Spanish), a little caution/reserve on faces but still a warm welcome. Hostal KB Tambo was small, just a handful of rooms behind a restaurant, just like a little guest house with fairly basic facilities - but at least a hot shower in both the childrens' rooms and ours!
Our lunch was a very windy meal - each time the wind blew the doors by our table blew open and the girls' hair went everywhere - luckily the food stayed on the plate!
The afternoon was quiet - we went for a wander while the kids played in their rooms - Siena reading as usual, Finn with us and Derry on her DS.
We walked nearly as far as the train station but as the large raindrops fell, we turned round and came back to the hotel with an optimistic view to the next day as we'd had a preview of the ruins to walk around tomorrow. We like Ollanta, it feels just right, really laid back, friendly, 'sympa'.
Weds 11th
The morning was devoted to climbing up the terraced ruins and exploring around - this time without a guide (thought we'd save that for Machu Picchu) - after the initial complaints (I'm too tired to climb - from our mountain goat) everyone had a brilliant climb - the ruins everywhere are truly spectacular - well preserved (or re-built), the scale, height and trying to imagine the effort from hundreds of people which had to go into the construction is quite mind boggling. The pictures give half a clue but for everyone reading this, you really have to make the effort to see it (potentially without kids!) to truly appreciate it. Also bearing in mind it was still just 500 years ago, not ancient like the Aztecs, gives another perspective.
After lunch, Finn and Derry started a new career - Adoptadog. After they had befriended one of the hundred dogs in the village last night, they managed to find it again, and spent the rest of the afternoon patting dogs, and playing with stones around the village - truly we think our youngest children are potential Inca architects or builders - and we've seen the Peruvian construction efforts - we might use them for our next phase of building at our offices - all manual, loads of men with wheelbarrows and hard hats, looks like interminably slow progress but when you see what they've done in a day it's quite impressive - and probably cost about 50 quid for the whole day for the lot of them ! meanwhile the oldest child is content scribing the history of the community, or being the local wise scholar. Me (alan), I fancy myself as the village chief or high priest/Inca (well, I'll have the power but not with all the sun worship stuff - factor 15 religion J - seems you also get the best plumbing in your stone palace)
Alan, Finn and Derry went for a walk to find the river to skim some stones (the reason our baggage is over weight has something to do with the hundred or so circular stones they carry waiting to they get to Lake Titicaca (aka Boobypoopoo!) but failed to get across the train track so we got a tuctuc back to the hostal - they are brilliant, mopeds with 3 wheels across the cobbles and (bizarrely) speed bumps is quite a ride!
The evening saw us visiting the market but resisting the charms of the sellers, enjoying a powercut, trying Chicha (local brew - after 2 days it's fruity, after 4 its alcoholic and allegedly made by the locals spitting into the brew to enliven it!) we tried the 2 day version, well fruity like a strong ribena.
We decided the pizza is not a good idea, it looks great, the idea of a wood fire is good but the reality of a smokey restaurant, Andean cheese and too much of it is not a good combination!
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