Perú 4 - Ollantaytambo

A really small town with a lot of history. Did you know the cobblestone streets and water ways were constructed by the Inkas way back when? And they still work! Albeit the streets are really narrow and bumpy.

But why is this little town so important? It's where you catch the trains to Macchu Pichu!!! There are two train lines with different services throughout the day, we found that Inka Rail was the best rate/time combination so we bought that one (bear in mind that you need to buy the tickets well in advanced as they sell out quickly! - we bought them like a couple of months before the trip).
Ollanta also has a beautiful archaelogical site you can visit. It is made up of terraces used to prevent erosion in agriculture and the different temples.

Here you can visit the most amazing feat of engineering (maybe not the most amazing one but absolutely superb) a water fountain that you can turn on and off just by running your finger along the lip of the fountain. All made of stone! Simply amazing.








If you have good stamina and a little extra time, you can visit the granaries dotted opposite the terraces. We decided to skip the granaries in order to save our energy for Macchu Pichu the next day.










The BEST breakfast we had our whole trip was in a little corner restaurant in Ollanta - the Hearts Cafe. They are also part of Living Heart Peru NGO, providing health and education to the impoverished highland communities above Peru’s Sacred Valley. Please please please take coloring pencils, notebooks, toothbrushes, soap and anything else you can carry to make donations here. They're program is amazing and their impact unfathomable!

How did we get here? We took a minibus from Cuzco! We asked our hotel's front desk what was the cheapest safest way to go to Ollanta and they provided us with directions. It's a first come first serve service and once the minibus is full it sets off through the most amazing scenery. Just sit back and enjoy the view...and try not to think about the driving here....it's terrifying!!!