Ollantaytambo Ruins and Peru 911
Trip Start
Jun 21, 2008
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5
11
Trip End
Aug 16, 2008
Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Hola mis amigos y mis padres!
So this weekend many of my friends around here took off to Machu Picchu on a 4-day jungle trek (Machu Picchu is THE tourist attraction of Peru, and possibly South America). I would have went, but with Alex coming early next month I wanted to save the experience to share with her. People describe Machu Picchu, which is an ancient Inca citadel purched between two mountains, and only discovered in the early 20th c., as one of the most beautiful and breathtaking sites they have ever seen, so I am VERY excited to go.....but thats a story for a another day. As for my weekend, it was pretty lonely, not only was everyone gone but I was sick from weds. until sat. with a head cold and congestion, but I´m 100% now!
So a recap of my week...
Thurs: not very eventful....however....I was sitting in the terrace area just before lunch with all the other students reading when an explosion went off.....IN MY PANTS....and not one of those good explosions, I had a lighter in my pocket and apparently mixing that with the high altitude and the heat of the sun is not such a good idea. I seriously thought I had been shot as the gas oozed in my pocket, I jumped back ready to take on whatever had tried to injure me, but I ended up being my own worst enemy...no harm or foul though, and I will never carry a lighter in my pocket again...so much for survival instincts....
Friday:
I spent Friday touring Sacsaywaman (pronounced Sexy Woman, although there aren´t any sexy women up there that I could see). Sacsaywaman is actually another of the ancient Inca ruin sites, the closest to the Cusco, just above the city adjacent to Cristo Blanco (see past post). It was a beautiful site, but not as nice or as complex as Pisaq and it only took about a half-hour to walk through. I ate lunch over-looking the city, but still wasn´t feeling well and went back to the Rez to rest.
Saturday:
Pumped to go to Ollantaytambo, a ruin site about 2 hours northwest of us, I got up early, strolled to the bus depot (which is as ghetto as the actual buses they use) but was turned away, apparently I was at the wrong depot, around here a depot is designated for one destination only, and because I couldn´t understand where they were telling me to go to catch the bus for Ollantaytambo I made the most of my ´Billeto Turistico¨ and visited some of the local museums (the billeto is a 10-day entrance ticket for 16 sites in and around Cusco, you can only visit each one once, and within the 10 day window, its a scam if you ask me, but it motivated me to get to most of the sites). The museums were ok, although I´m not much of a museum guy I figured a little culture on a saturday couldn´t hurt. I also checked out ¨Molino¨ a sort-of black market south of the city which retails all the fake clothing and ripped dvds and cds you can imagine, its the quite the place.
Sunday:
Found the right bus depot and made it to Ollantaytambo. The first route takes you to Urubamba, just me, a broke-ass 1970¨s-era tour bus and about 45 locals sardined for 2 hours, smelt great! Once you arrive in Urubamba you take what is called a ¨Colectivo¨ a pseudo-extenda-van sardined again with as many locals as they can fit on, and of course a 24-year-old Canadian kid hoping to hell the van is going to Ollantaytambo and not some underground work camp, again, the smell is to die for....though I shouldn´t complain, maybe they think I stink with my laundry detergent stench and Old Spice deodorant. The Ollaytantambo ruins were beautiful, fairly steep and intricate, although not to the scale of Pisaq. There were a lot of tourists with their guides and modern tour buses, makes me wonder how much these ppl. spend to get there, my total:
Ticket: included in my bileto
Bus to Urubamba (2 hrs.) and back: approx. $2.50 CAN
Urubamba to Ollantaytambo and back: $0.66 CAN
...a full day of siteseeing for $3.16 CAN...I´m not sure what is more incredible the actual ruins themselves or the cost to go and see them
Monday:
Finally shaved the horrible growth above my lip which I was referring to as a mustache....enough said
Tuesday: ęru 911
Excited to see my friends return...I woke up to my friend Kat rushing to me asking if I could help her take Carlo to a hospital. Apparently Carlo had badly sprained his ankle walking down from Machu Picchu. So our adventure began after breakfast. We were referred to a local clinic called ´Hampy-Land´ (seriously) whose slogan reads, ¨Reach Your Destiny¨, whatever that means. So we sat in there while Carlo got some x-rays, the staunch team of ´medical professionals´ there insisted we take an ambulance to the main ´Hampy-Land´location south of the city. We sat in the ambulance with another guy who was lying down on the floor of the ámbulance´with an oxygen hook-up, he found our dilemma pretty comical. So...long story short, the medical team at the main clinic INSISTED Carlo get a cast on his sprained ankle (remember health care here is not universal, so whatever they can add to the bill the better, though it didn´t bother Carlo who had taken out some pretty sweet health insurance which covers everything), so we went along for the ride that we figured the doctors were taking us on. We must have seen 3 or 4 doctors, or whatever they were, and 4 hours later we were outside the clinic trying to figure out how to get back to Rez, it was quite the morning. Tues. nite we went to a cool Thai-food hangout called Indigo, we smoked out of a Hooka (not dope mom) and had some very spicy Thai food and choc. cake, it was great!!!
So ends my week, trivia night tonight and Lake Titicaca and Bolivia on the weekend, very excited...
Until we meet again this has been The World According to Kev :)
Chao Chao
