We just spent two magnificent days in Ollantaytambo. The first day we checked in, showered, ate lunch, and immediately headed out for a shorter hike to some ruins on the mountainside near the city.
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| Ruins near Ollantaytambo |
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| Barrett looking from some ruins at some other ruins across the valley |
The next day we did a longer hike to some ruins nobody goes to that the woman working the front desk at our hotel told us about. It was about 2 hours away that took us through some of the countryside. Along the way we saw different types of farming, several Incan terraces, and some farm animals.
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| The sign marking the way to the Pumamarca ruins |
Then came the spooky part...seeing a human skull just nestled in the wall along the trail.
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| Human skull?! |
We got a little lost trying to follow the hand-drawn map, but when we finally made it to the ruins, we had them to ourselves (other than a couple of horses grazing).
Remember how I said we kind of got lost? Getting lost meant wandering through overgrown terraces looking for a path. The result was HUNDREDS of various different seeds attached to my shoes, socks, and leggings. Good times.
When we finally found the trail back, it was beautiful. It followed old Incan aqueducts for a while, then winded us through some terraces, across creeks, and eventually led us to herding about 5 cows for 15 minutes because there was no place for us to get around them or for them to move off to the side. I channeled my inner Grandpa Hall for cattle herding skills.
Once back home, about 5 and a half hours later, we had a great evening exploring more of the town and ended with dinner and some intense star gazing from our patio. We saw numerous shooting stars as well as the Southern Cross. It was neat to see a different night sky than we see in the northern hemi.
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| Road to our Hotel at Night |
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