Terraces and buildings in Pisac
My first impressions of Cuzco, after walking around the main plaza and
the central area, was what a hassle it was to move around and
accomplish anything. Every step you take you are constantly hounded by
people trying to sell you things, from postcards, paintings, sweaters,
and tours, to massages and meals in restaurants. Their is one alley,
known as gringo alley where there restaurant promoters compete
voraciously to get you inside their restaurant. If one offers free
nachos the other offers free nachos and garlic bread, then the other
offers that plus free drinks, and then the other counters with talk of
a fireplace, it just goes on and on. Then there are the guys trying to
sell you drugs of all sorts, quite openly as the police walk the main
plaza at the end of the alley.
Ruins of the temple in Pisac
The shear number of tour companies is
also simply amazing. After talking with many of them I came to learn
that most of them work together to form groups of people for the
various tours, they communicate over the phone and via instant
messanger networks over the internet. It becomes confusing because not
all of them work together and they will never tell you who they work
with. This becomes very frustrating when you are walking around and
trying to compare the different prices and operators, you always hear
something different. In the end, the hike that I wanted to do, from
Choquequirao to Machu Picchu, wasn´t possible because no one else was
interested in the same route and they would go with only one person. It
being February the Inca Trail was closed so I settled for visiting
Machu Picchu on my own.
The ruins of Ollantaytambo
But that was easier said than done. I arrived
in Cuzco on Sunday and there was much talk of the strike that was
supposed to happen all week. The strike was over the government´s talks
about privatizing the operation of many of the tourist sites and ruins
around Peru in order to further develop them for tourism. The people of
Cuzco are opposed to this for many reasons, and had decided to show the
government their disapproval. On Monday protesters stopped the trains
from Cuzco to Machu Picchu, but otherwise things were normal through
Wednesday, although there was much uncertainty over whether there would
be transport on any given day.
On Tuesday I took a day tour to the Sacred Valley, solely for the
convenience it provided in terms of transportation.
Ruins higher up on Ollantaytambo
We left at 6:30am
because they thought the road would be blocked by the strikes later in
the morning. We first visited Pisac, where there is a large fortress
and some religious buildings on the mountain overlooking the town.
Unfortunately, the tour only visited one part of the site, leaving the
other and more interesting part untouched. From there we proceeded to
an overpriced lunch at a touristy restaurant on the way to
Ollantaytambo where there are some very nice ruins of temples,
terraces, and dwellings set into a hillside near the town. The town
itself is very nice with old Inca streets complete with water canals
and buildings built on top of the original Inca foundations. Across the
valley from the main site there is another small site set way up on the
mountain.
Ruins on the other side in Ollantaytambo
This part is very picturesque and is atually free to visit.
There is a steep trail leading up there from a street in the town and
you can climb up to the ruins and you will almost certainly be there on
your own. Past the highest part of the ruins there is even a cave which
proceeds for quite a ways into the mountain, gradually narrowing;
probably used by the Incas for something or another. The highest and
seemingly more interesting part of the main ruins in Ollantaytambo are
off-limits for whatever reason. Leaving Ollantaytambo we proceeded to
Chincherro where this is a truly amazing church built on top of an Inca
temple. The inside of the church has intricately painted wooden
ceilings and walls and has an immense amount of character and
atmosphere to it, sadly it was prohibited to take pictures inside.
Looking down on Ollantaytambo
After Chincherro we returned to Cusco without any incident or delay
from the strikes.
With no plans for hiking I set out for the train station to get tickets
to Aguas Caliente, the village at the base of Machu Picchu. I was able
to get a ticket there for Wednesday night but they would not sell me a
return ticket for Friday because they said there would be a strike on
Thursday and Friday and no transportation anywhere. So I bought one for
Saturday, hoping that I might be able to change it in case trains were
running on Friday, worst case I would be stuck in Machu Picchu until
Saturday morning, not a bad place to be stuck at all.
