Moray and Ollantaytambo

Friday, June 06, 2008
Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru
We got up and had a mystery breakfast at the hostal. The lady running asked us if we wanted a continental, american or andean breakfast. When in Rome...we chose the Andean. It was fine. It was a mixture of quinoa, egg, cheese and fried onions in a patty. Quinoa is really big here, especially in soups. This I will look into using when I get home.
After breakfast we made our way to the train station and bought our tickets to Macchu Picchu . We don´t leave until 7:00pm, so we had the rest of the day to tour around. We hopped on the local combi (basically a minivan that crams in as many people as humanly possible, then still pick us more people along the way. Hey it was $0.10 so I can´t complain) to go to Urubamba, a small town in the Sacred Valley. We handed out a couple of Canada pins to some of the local children on the combi and we had instant friends. In Urubamba, we were dropped off at the local market. Think of it like St Lawrence market but nobody has stalls and everything was on drop clothes on the ground. It was pretty cool and it smelled really good with fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs and spices. I kind of wished I needed to buy something.
Then we hired a cab to take us to Moray. It´s another Inca place where it looks like they were studying what crops grew better at which altitudes. It´s a bunch of circles dug deep into the ground. (pictures will do this justice, uploading is slow here so I will do it later) As corny as this sounds, it is ingenious and beautifully done.
We caught the combi back and had lunch at a VERY local restaurant. You don´t actually get a menu. They just bring you what they are serving that day. It was soup and a rice and meat dish. We don´t really know what kind of meat but it was a red meat. So far my stomach is holding up. It only cost us $1.25. I don´t think any other gringos have ever stepped foot in there since it is a little off the main square. Some people don´t have any sense of adventure.
After lunch, we went up the Ollantaytambo ruins and again lots more steps. The Incans pre-planned there settlements well. It was amazing to see all the aquaducts that are built into the structures everywhere. This place had massive stones transported from a quarry about 6km away. Can you imagine dragging 300tons of granite (they didn´t have the wheel) then getting up a mountain? And you think you have a hard job? Now we are just waiting for our train to Macchu Picchu. I promise to get pictures up when the internet is faster.

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