Daily double
While Amy continued in Cusco, Greg traveled by bus with the other tour to reach the Ollantaytambo, the last town before the train and the Inka Trail to Machu Picchu. First stop was at an overlook of Cusco. It was next to Sacsayhuaman (“sexy woman”), an Inka site that Amy and Greg visited earlier this week. The others on the trip missed out on that great site.
Next stop was the village of Ccaccaccollo. No, I don’t know how to pronounce it. The village is a women’s collective where they make gorgeous items out of alpaca and llama fur. Everything is done by hand in the traditional manner: how they clean the fur, spin it into yarn, dye it with plants and bugs (really), then weave it into clothing and decorative items. Greg bought a hat and a gorgeous blanket out of pure alpaca that will be his new TV watching blanket. As for the men, they work the farms in the hills above the weaving collective.
Next, we visited a similar collective that makes traditional pottery. We got a demonstration on how they make bricks by hand in order to build their homes. This raised a question: How do they make masonry construction safe in earthquake country? The answer was not satisfying.
Our next stop was a very big lunch with appetizers, soup, several mains and dessert. Greg ordered a glass of Chicha morada, a sweet drink made from purple corn. He passed the glass around for others to taste, which may not have been the best choice for a germaphobe. After lunch, we sat in the garden and played a coin toss game similar to cornhole. It was probably luck, but Greg got the second best score.
After a bit more driving, we reached Ollantaytambo. After we put our bags in the hotel, we went out for a practice hike up the mountain to the ruins of a granary where the pre-Incan residents stored their harvest. The hike was harder than Greg expected: steep rocky steps with a sharp cliff. At elevation. Doable for Greg, but barely. Amy made the right choice to take the other tour. But the view was amazing and Greg had no problems on the downhill.
