Marian Johns' Journal of the Desert
Explorers trip to Peru in 2002
Images by John Page unless otherwise noted
Day 12, September
15, Sunday
Cuzco to Ollantaytambo See
Map
Sept. 15, Sunday – We managed to find our way out of Cuzco this morning and drove ourselves over to the town of Pisac in the Sacred Valley. It was a lovely drive with views of the valley and the Urubamba River far below. The Urubamba eventually joins the Amazon. And off in the distance were beautiful snow-capped peaks. I don’t remember the mountains being so big, nor so steep. The scenery is spectacular!
Down in Pisac, we enjoyed
shopping at the colorful and lively Sunday market. 
I bought some silver,
inlaid pendants. Then, I helped Joann Kosharek look for some jewelry with
Peruvian opal set in gold. I have seen Peruvian opal back home at
Quartzsite but haven’t noticed any in Peru yet. We were in luck – we
found some opal items, and even though they were set in silver, Joann
bought them. I don’t think the vendors here sell pricey things made of
gold. Joann is quite the bargainer. She offers about half of what the
vendors ask and usually they accept – eventually, after trying to haggle
the price up.
While wandering around the market, I stopped to watch a group of Indian musicians making quit a racket in front of the church. One instrument was a large conch shell.
Lunch goodies were purchased at the Pisac market, and then we drove up to the Pisac ruins parking lot where we made sandwiches on the Mazda tailgate.
There is a paved road part way up to the ruins now, but it’s still quite a hike. Years ago you had to hike all the way from the bottom in Pisac. Most of us elected to look through binoculars.
There were several children and women there at the parking lot dressed in their colorful native outfits, holding little animals – puppies or baby lambs – hoping to be photographed for a sole or two. In Cuzco, kids trying to sell stuff can be quite obnoxious with their persistence, even when it’s obvious you’re not interested in their merchandise.
Our next destination was Ollantaytambo, down the Sacred Valley where the paved road ends. Drove through the towns of Calca and Urubamba on the way. We will be staying at the Albergue Ollantaytambo for two nights. It is located right next to the train station, about a kilometer from the center of town. We put the trucks in a walled yard nearby. Across the railroad track is the Urubamba River which presently is a roaring, slate-gray torrent. The returning trains from Machu Picchu come fairly often and spew diesel fumes everywhere while they discharge passengers.
No one feels like walking a kilometer up to town to see the Inca ruins or to have dinner there, so we elected to eat at the hotel. I have become spoiled by the low prices for meals, so the $10 US we were charged at the Albergue seemed high. We didn’t have much choice though unless we wanted to walk to town. We had mashed potatoes, either a chicken or beef entrée (I picked chicken – just average), spinach soup (good), and cake (not too good), - a rather disappointing meal for $10.
The Albergue has a nice garden with a beautiful datura plant – related to ours, but huge – almost tree-size. This plant has large white flowers like those at home; however, they do not stand upright, but instead hang down.
From the second floor
balcony, you can see the Inca fortress in the distance. 
The hotel has three dogs – black and yellow labs that are obviously spoiled. I took a cute photo of two sprawled on the bottom two steps of the stairs up to our rooms – made negotiating our way up a bit difficult.
Our Machu Picchu train tickets have been screwed up. I made reservations several months ago while still at home, but the day before we left, I got an e-mail saying I needed to remake reservations with a different company. It was unclear what that was all about, but when we were at Victor’s in Lima, he supposedly made new reservations for us. That evidently got screwed up too. We thought we were scheduled for the 7:00 a.m. Vistadome #1, but now they tell us we can’t go until 10:00. That will cut our time at Machu Picchu considerably. I wanted to avoid the problem we had years ago when we only had two hours to explore. As compensation for the screw up, we are being supplied with a guide once we get there.
