Ollantaytambo-Aguas Calientes

We got on the mini-van that would take us from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo (try saying Ollantaytambo 3 times fast! haha! took us a while to be able to say it correctly...) and made our way down the Sacred Valley, following the river, in the midst of the mountains. Beautiful scenery. Warm weather (for the first time in a while!!) But since we had been a little late in getting our bus in the morning, we didn’t have that much time to go exploring the ruins. We did however, find this amazing café owned by a British woman who used it as a charity place, where all the profits went to benefit the undernourished children of the mountain villages around. Great food, and quite strange to find a full English Breakfast in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, Peru.




The best thing though, is that they were having a festival, so we saw lots of people dressed up in interesting/funny/scary costumes dancing and walking around the city... that was fun and unexpected!



Apparently we were having too much fun, because when we got up and started to walk towards the train station, we had to run the last 500m or so because the train was about to leave!!! Can you imagine? US$31 dollars for the train and watch it go without us... NO WAY! So we got on the train and the views were simply amazing!!



Arriving in Aguas Calientes, the initial idea was to camp, so we had left our stuff at the hotel in Cuzco, and brought just the tent and a small backpack, because we had heard lodging in Aguas Calientes was pretty expensive. Except we had fallen asleep on the train (it's amazing, we could sleep through anything... any type of transport, if it starts to move, it would rock me to sleep and I had to make an effort to stay awake if I wanted to look at the views!) and so we were pretty tired and wanted a proper bed. This girl immediately approached us and offered us a room for the same amount we had been paying in Cuzco. Well, jackpot. Ok, so the room was a little dodgy, and had a humangous window facing the hallway (with curtains that didn't quite cover the whole thing!) but at least there was a bed and hot shower... eventually we'd realize that was the best thing we could've done...

So we walked around for a while, bought some food to make sandwiches for the next day (yes, you are allowed to take food, just pack it all out when you leave the Machu Picchu complex!) and went to sleep early because we were supposed to get up at 4:30am!

The only problem is that this time it was MY stomach that wasn't feeling so well, and I spent half the night sitting up in bed trying to feel better... :(