We’ve spent a reasonable amount of time travelling up and down the dramatic Sacred Valley over the last few days. After first visiting Pisac and spending ages admiring the upper end of the valley from the great height of the mountain-perched Inca complex, we thought we’d have a go at venturing a little further. Pisac was very easy to get to – just hop on one of the small rickety local busses that leave every 15 minutes or so from Avenida Tullumayo in central Cusco and it’s an extremely cheap 30 minute trip. Our next target, Ollantaytambo, as well as proving much more difficult to pronounce, was much trickier to reach.
The main problem is that direct busses to and from Ollantaytambo are few and far between – leaving only once or twice a day at inconvenient times. So, to get there in ‘local style’ you have to first catch one of the incredibly popular busses that leave Avenida Grau to go to another town in the Sacred valley called Urubamba every half an hour. This was sort of OK –we weren’t lucky enough to get seats and so had to stand in the isle with 15 odd other poor devils in the packed bus. We were getting the hang of keeping our balance around the tight hair-pin bends as the road wound up out of Cusco when unfortunately the bus started to warm up. This is one thing that we really can’t understand about the locals here – they wear layer upon layer upon layer of clothing ALL of the time. Yes, the evenings and nights are bitterly cold, but the days are often sunny and warm. This was a warm day and we were in a packed, overcrowded bus – so the temperature rose rapidly until Gary and I were boiling! But even though the locals seemed to be wearing more than 4 times as many clothes compared to either of us they closed all the windows and wrapped themselves up in more coats to make it even warmer! We just don’t get it, they must have been roasting, but they all kept their coats on!
Anyway, the trip to Urubamba wasn’t the most comfortable, but it did offer some wonderful vistas as we descended into the Sacred Valley. Then we had a relatively easy transfer onto a Collectivo bound for Ollantaytambo. A Collectivo is a sort of clapped-out mini bus that only leaves a bus terminal when it can’t possibly fit any more passengers on board – but of course it will stop every now and then along the way to squeeze in anyone else who hails it down! Still, out reward for successfully traversing the Sacred Valley was to have a few hours exploring the very pretty little town of Ollantaytambo with its impressive Inca Fort.
The ruins here aren’t anywhere near as impressively located as those in Pisac. The main Inca Citadel is only 200m or so up the mountain above town, and so as you climb you do get nice views back over the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo itself, but they don’t compare to the vistas from the Pisac Temple. On the other hand it only takes a gentle 10 minute climb to reach the top rather than nearly 2 hours of hard hiking! It is for this reason we suspect that Ollantaytambo is particularly popular with tour groups. We were fortunate – we had just enough time to make a leisurely ascent to the citadel, quickly explore the small ruined Temple of the Sun, and then stroll along the top of the beautifully geometric agricultural terraces before the tours descended upon the place. As we made our way down the far side of the Inca Complex to our horror we saw hoards of tourists making their way (very very slowly) up to the Citadel we had explored only half an hour earlier. There were loads of them! At least five groups, each with 10 to 30 people… it looked like the stone terraces had sprouted a particularly virulent and colourful fungal infection! We actually felt sorry for each of the poor sods struggling upwards. Whereas we’d enjoyed the stunning temple and scenery in peace, they would be herded around the place with billions of others, never really getting the chance to appreciate it properly. And I dread to think how much more a guided tour would have cost compared to the pittance we paid for our local transport adventure!
This made us think of a conversation we’d overheard a day earlier while having a pizza for dinner in a restaurant overlooking the Plaza De Armas in Cusco. We don’t usually listen to other people’s conversations… but here we had no choice. Two couples in their late middle age sitting at adjacent tables began to chat – one from Denmark, the other from the USA. And trust me, if we’d been sitting in the restaurant next door we’d probably have still heard the North Americans clearly! They started off by saying ‘You know, we had a real adventure today – we were picked up by our guide at 8.00am and didn’t come back until 5.00! We visited the Sacred Valley’. At this point the Danish couple politely asked where in the Sacred Valley they had visited. ‘Ugh, I don’t think it has a name other than the Sacred Valley. There were some salt mines…But our Guide was really good – he’s written a book! I bought it…’ As you can imagine, this went on for some time! Eventually the Danish couple explained that they had used local buses to see the valley a few days earlier – and that they had been travelling up to Cusco from Lima by bus. The couple from the USA could barely disguise their horror: ‘Local buses? That must have been, err, interesting. Have you been to the Airport here? No? It’s really unusual…’ It was clear that the Danes had completely fallen in their estimation for not spending more money to travel in luxury – and for becoming somehow contaminated by ‘mixing’ with locals.
We listened to all this (we had no choice given the volume the North Americans shouted) with utter horror. I really hope that most people who travel have a genuine interest in the places they visit – and are willing to explore them rather than wanting bits and pieces handed to them on a 5 star platter. Having the opportunity to explore and get a real feel for a place is so much more fun than simply being bussed from point to point with crowds of other tourists. And on a practical note – independent travel is much cheaper too!
The main problem is that direct busses to and from Ollantaytambo are few and far between – leaving only once or twice a day at inconvenient times. So, to get there in ‘local style’ you have to first catch one of the incredibly popular busses that leave Avenida Grau to go to another town in the Sacred valley called Urubamba every half an hour. This was sort of OK –we weren’t lucky enough to get seats and so had to stand in the isle with 15 odd other poor devils in the packed bus. We were getting the hang of keeping our balance around the tight hair-pin bends as the road wound up out of Cusco when unfortunately the bus started to warm up. This is one thing that we really can’t understand about the locals here – they wear layer upon layer upon layer of clothing ALL of the time. Yes, the evenings and nights are bitterly cold, but the days are often sunny and warm. This was a warm day and we were in a packed, overcrowded bus – so the temperature rose rapidly until Gary and I were boiling! But even though the locals seemed to be wearing more than 4 times as many clothes compared to either of us they closed all the windows and wrapped themselves up in more coats to make it even warmer! We just don’t get it, they must have been roasting, but they all kept their coats on!
Anyway, the trip to Urubamba wasn’t the most comfortable, but it did offer some wonderful vistas as we descended into the Sacred Valley. Then we had a relatively easy transfer onto a Collectivo bound for Ollantaytambo. A Collectivo is a sort of clapped-out mini bus that only leaves a bus terminal when it can’t possibly fit any more passengers on board – but of course it will stop every now and then along the way to squeeze in anyone else who hails it down! Still, out reward for successfully traversing the Sacred Valley was to have a few hours exploring the very pretty little town of Ollantaytambo with its impressive Inca Fort.
The ruins here aren’t anywhere near as impressively located as those in Pisac. The main Inca Citadel is only 200m or so up the mountain above town, and so as you climb you do get nice views back over the Sacred Valley and Ollantaytambo itself, but they don’t compare to the vistas from the Pisac Temple. On the other hand it only takes a gentle 10 minute climb to reach the top rather than nearly 2 hours of hard hiking! It is for this reason we suspect that Ollantaytambo is particularly popular with tour groups. We were fortunate – we had just enough time to make a leisurely ascent to the citadel, quickly explore the small ruined Temple of the Sun, and then stroll along the top of the beautifully geometric agricultural terraces before the tours descended upon the place. As we made our way down the far side of the Inca Complex to our horror we saw hoards of tourists making their way (very very slowly) up to the Citadel we had explored only half an hour earlier. There were loads of them! At least five groups, each with 10 to 30 people… it looked like the stone terraces had sprouted a particularly virulent and colourful fungal infection! We actually felt sorry for each of the poor sods struggling upwards. Whereas we’d enjoyed the stunning temple and scenery in peace, they would be herded around the place with billions of others, never really getting the chance to appreciate it properly. And I dread to think how much more a guided tour would have cost compared to the pittance we paid for our local transport adventure!
This made us think of a conversation we’d overheard a day earlier while having a pizza for dinner in a restaurant overlooking the Plaza De Armas in Cusco. We don’t usually listen to other people’s conversations… but here we had no choice. Two couples in their late middle age sitting at adjacent tables began to chat – one from Denmark, the other from the USA. And trust me, if we’d been sitting in the restaurant next door we’d probably have still heard the North Americans clearly! They started off by saying ‘You know, we had a real adventure today – we were picked up by our guide at 8.00am and didn’t come back until 5.00! We visited the Sacred Valley’. At this point the Danish couple politely asked where in the Sacred Valley they had visited. ‘Ugh, I don’t think it has a name other than the Sacred Valley. There were some salt mines…But our Guide was really good – he’s written a book! I bought it…’ As you can imagine, this went on for some time! Eventually the Danish couple explained that they had used local buses to see the valley a few days earlier – and that they had been travelling up to Cusco from Lima by bus. The couple from the USA could barely disguise their horror: ‘Local buses? That must have been, err, interesting. Have you been to the Airport here? No? It’s really unusual…’ It was clear that the Danes had completely fallen in their estimation for not spending more money to travel in luxury – and for becoming somehow contaminated by ‘mixing’ with locals.
We listened to all this (we had no choice given the volume the North Americans shouted) with utter horror. I really hope that most people who travel have a genuine interest in the places they visit – and are willing to explore them rather than wanting bits and pieces handed to them on a 5 star platter. Having the opportunity to explore and get a real feel for a place is so much more fun than simply being bussed from point to point with crowds of other tourists. And on a practical note – independent travel is much cheaper too!
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