WOW: Vistas, Glaciers, and Valleys

This morning we set out with our driver to take us to Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley where we're about to catch our train toward Machu Picchu.  I'm so glad that we hired a private car so we had some peace and our own space for the drive of nearly 2 hours, although it felt like far less.  It may have seemed to go quickly because we were in awe of the scenery.

The term "scenery" doesn't do it justice. The mountains and glaciers were spectacular, especially the peak of Salcantay (18,000 feet!)  which was split at the peak like two donkey ears. We pulled over a couple times for pictures of the local mountain range, and left just as some tour buses pulled in and the Americanos tumbled out with their wide-brimmed hats and fanny packs. This was good, since any roadside vendor could attack the group with their wares, therefore distracting them from us before we quietly slipped away.

We saw vistas of awe-inspiring peaks, and deathly steep cliffs descending into valleys cut in half by tumbling rivers. "Wow" was the only word that seemed to leave our lips, as we were rendered speechless by the surroundings.  As beautiful as the Rockies are, the Peruvian Andes win the beauty contest. Again I thought of the phrase that I uttered 2 days earlier from the plane: a beautiful disaster.

Arriving in Ollantaytambo, we were dropped off in the main plaza, which was a petite town center compared to lively Cusco. The town is nestled in a valley, and as we sat at a sidewalk cafe facing the most treacherous peaks,  every few minutes we'd spy yet another Incan ruin that seemed no materialize from the mountainside.  A first look we could pick out two of the largest ruins that appeared to stick to the cliffs by some celestial glue.  But after about an hour of staring, we'd spy another ruin, and another, and hey! Look over there! It's another one! I was like staring at one of those "find the image" prints that are set up in mall kiosks that you have to go cross-eyed to see. I was also giddy to spot a cat on a hot tin roof (heehee) across the plaza. This was meaningful because this country is littered with dogs, about as much as Chicago has pigeons.  So a cat was a rarity indeed.

After lunch we wandered a back street of the town that had a open stream running alongside the adobes in order to channel the mountain runoff into the river below. Since we couldn't bring our luggage on the train, we were just carrying our totes and duffel bags.  At one adobe entrance, a child was standing in the doorway.  I looked past her into the courtyard to see two white cats inside. I talked to her a bit, asking if the cat had a name, which it didn't. With her permission, I knelt down to take a picture as I sometimes do, not realizing I still had 10 pounds on my back and 20 dangling off my left side.  Losing my balance, I promptly and awkwardly stumbled backward and fell on my butt, eliciting giggles from the young girl.  We had a nice chuckle.

Since we've been on the run every day since we arrived, today was our day to relax.  We roamed the town, and in the process noticed most homes had 2 ceramic bulls on the roof.  Talking to a vendor, he described that they brought good luck to the home, which I then recalled reading somewhere earlier.  The bulls always come in pairs, and we were able to negotiate a sale of a pair for each of us for just $3 total. Luck indeed!

Our train for Aguas Calientes (essentially Machu Picchu base camp) leaves at 7pm tonight, so we're just passing time in a cafe near the train station along side a river.  Notably across from a local Quechua woman serving up rice and chicken from her pots that are set up on a table with a little bench on the sidewalk.  Me want. However, as much as I enjoy guerilla street dining (and my successes of gastronomically handling street food very well)  I really don't want to chance it the day before Machu Picchu.  I don't think they have industrial flush toilets inside the ruins.

Side note: foreign travel is the perfect opportunity to practice your multiplication tables, complete with division in order to convert currency and calculate prices.  Carry a calculator.  A couple times we had to pull it out when we were dealing with higher-priced items, o when we'd negotiate in local currency, then agree to pay in dollars, which warranted further calculation. Plus there are kilometer and meters, which is it's own set of math. So far so good, but we're dealing with an easy base of 3 in Peru.  Next week in Chile its a base of 500. That'll be a hoot.