Return of KP and JoJo

Devotees of this blog may remember fellow travelers KP and JoJo from adventures in Praha, Wittenburg, Dresden,  Berlin, and their wedding.  Anne, Mark and HBomb have been doing their best to avoid KP and JoJo since then, but eventually they tracked us down in Ollantaytumbo (which is an Incan word that roughly translates as "town where KP and JoJo are going to track you down."  Roughly.).

Ollantaytumbo is a an old town in the Sacred Valley of Peru.  It is located at a little over 9,000 feet of altitude, which is actually a few thousand feet lower than the city of Cusco, which is where this group of travelers landed when they flew into Peru.  Ollantaytumbo and Cusco are both fascinating places, and both are home to ruins of the Incan empire.  Ollantaytumbo is probably best known as the starting place for those brave souls who plan to hike the entire Inca trail.  Although Mark is well known for his love of hiking as well as his hiking skills, due to time constraints, he passed on the 4 day Inca Trail hike (maybe next time).

Mark did, however, hike the ruins at Ollantaytumbo, but did not bother to hire a tour guide.  So, everything from this point on is "accidentally accurate" at best and .... well, let's not even think about what is the worst case scenario.

Anyway, the ruins have a huge set of terraces carved into the mountain.  These were used by the ancient Inca for agricultural purposes (easier to grow crops on a small, flat area than a large, steep hillside.  They also set up some terraces to prevent erosion of the mountainside.  Apparently, the Incan gods had a thing against guard rails, so they didn't bother with those.

View of town from the path along the ruins.

The ruins have held up over time fairly well.  These particular ruins have been protected for awhile due to their proximity to the town, as opposed to the ruins at Machu Picchu, where were lost to western archaeologists until 1911.

Bad news: It's a long way down.  Good news: If you need to, you can fall there quickly.

HBomb and Mark scaled the ruins at Ollantaytumbo and then wandered around on the ground level.

Then, the guests started arriving.  First, the llamas and alpacas started showing up.  Apparently, they are free range in the ruins, because they pretty much just went where they wanted.  For the most part they were cool, calm and collected.  For the most part.  There was an episode of sprinting, however, when someone brought a small dog to the ruins.  (Why would anyone bring a dog to ancient ruins? In case the terrain got too "ruff".  :-)

But as I mentioned, for the most part, the non-wild wildlife was pretty calm.  Some of the tourists even went so far as to pose for pix with the locals.  In fact, JoJo did this soon after meeting up with HBomb and Mark in Ollantaytumbo.

It should be noted that there is no photo of KP with the local wildlife.  This is due to the fact that KP is wildly afraid of wool-producing animals of all species.


After meeting up and spending some time with the local wildlife, KP and JoJo decided to climb the ruins.  If you look closely at the photo below, you can see them ascending.

The group stopped in Ollantaytumbo primarily for two reasons.  First, to acclimate to the altitude.  As mentioned, Peru is at altitude.  If you're not used to it (or just a fat guy), it can be a little difficult to breathe.  Second, the train from Cusco to Machu Picchu pueblo (the closest town to Machu Picchu, formerly known as "Aguas Clients") was not running all the way to Cusco.  Ollantaytumbo was the closest city in which we could catch the train.  All in all, it was a pretty good warm up for the hike to come.