Urbamba

We left Pisac on Monday on a local bus which cost some three soles for the two of us, approximately $1.25).

It certainly was not a luxurious bus. However, it was very interesting -- the people here in the Sacred Valley are very friendly and very willing to help, not to mention, colourful.

The bus took us to Urbamba where we got on another bus which took us to Ollantaytambo our destination for the night. We arrived there in about two hours.

We settled into a place, which turned out to be verrrryyyyy nice, beside a fast-flowing river, which we could hear from our room.

We walked around Old Town which is very much in use today. These streets and houses were built in the fifteen century and demonstrated the Inca´s masterful urban planning.

Then we went to the Fortress ruins just outside of town and climbed up to the top which is reached after climbing 200 steps. A mere 200 steps compared to the climb in Pisac, which took two hours.

The terraces built by the Inca remain intact still. Ollantaytambo is at the northern end of the Sacred Valley, is rare if not unique in Peru. Ollantaytambo is a massive citadel located 50 kilometers from Machu Picchu. The citadel served as both a temple and a fortress. At some time unknown, and for reasons unknown, work mysteriously stopped on this huge project.

It is totally awesome and unbelieveable to think that the Inca carried all these stones up and created walls for agricultural purposes.

Climbing down the other side of the site, we saw an example of the Inca´s engineering genius in terms of seeing the irrigation system which ran into each house.

We found a wonderful restaurant, very cheap, to eat lunch and dinner in, i.e., lunch was six soles, approximately $2.50 and dinner was more expensive 12 soles, approximately $5.00 and that´s for both of us.

We left this quaint, peaceful town this morning to return to Cusco to get ready for our Inca Trail experience, which we begin tomorrow. We were fortunate in being able to get the right buses at the right time and arrived in Cusco before noon.

Tomorrow morning we will be picked up by Peru Treks at 5:20 a.m. and head our trek to Machu Picchu.

This is a picture of our neighbour.