Ollantaytambo & Pisac

So I spent my birthday at Ollantaytambo and the Sacred Valley. Ollantaytambo (pronounced Oyan-tay-tambo) has a huge inca fortress above it, and is a very cute village. The train stopped here on our way back from Machu Picchu and so we had planned to check out this Inca city, as well as the ruins at Pisac. We had arranged a guide and transport for the day to travel from Ollantaytambo, to Pisac and back to Cusco.

We stayed at the lovely El Albergue Bed and Breakfast which you can enter from the train platform. I didn’t think it would be very comfortable, not to mention noisy from the trains but it was a wonderful place, it had a beautiful garden and cabins rather than a building full of rooms. We had a very comfortable cabin with a lovely bathroom, and hot water!! We ate a tastey meal in their little restaurant where they make their own fettuccine and after seeing it drying, we all had pasta for dinner!

Ollantaytambo is an incan village that has been continuously inhabited since the 13th century. It has cobblestone roads, divided into blocks (kinda like mini suburbs) and each block has one entrance which leds into a courtyard. The ruins are spectacular, huge terraces that lead up to a fortress. It is one of the few places where the Spanish conquistador, Hernando Pizarro lost a major battle. They were trying to capture Manco Inca but were met with a barrage of arrows and boulders from the top of the terracing. However, the victory was shortlived, the Spanish returned with a larger force and and Manco fled to the jungle fortress of Vilcabamba.

What is beautiful about Ollantaytambo ruins is that they are very well preserved. The temple complex at the top of terracing has wonderful stonework, there is a wall of stones that were brought from a quarry 6 kms away, and they are enormous! From the top of the ruins you can see that the old walls of the houses are still standing and water sill runs through chanells through the complex to the many fountains that surround it. The fountains we learned were used for bathing, toilets and some were sacred. Our guide showed us how with a flick of the wrist it was possible to change the angle of the flow of water.

We learned a bit about the importance of the location of Ollantaytambo, the mountain opposite has some features that were important to the Inca’s, such as you can see the profile of a man’s face it. Also the crops were sewed depending on the stars that were visible in the sky, they depending a lot on astrology.

We then went to Pisac, after a lovely meal in the town and had to take a back way due to the getting stuck behind the Virgin del Carmen procession. The first thing you notice as you approach the ruins at Pisac is the steep terracing and dramatic architecture. Pisac was also a fortress, but there are many features that make it recognisable as a residential city. There are many ritual baths and areas that separated the nobles from he common people. This was obvious in the stonework, you can really see the difference between the noble quarters and the servant quarters! But the terracing is amazing, and when you climb to the top (no easy task!) we were rewarded with spectacular views of the Urubamba valley, to the west is the Rio Kitamayo gorge and the east is the Rio Chongo valley. The terracing is so beautiful, it wraps around and hugs the mountain and is so graceful! We could tell that Pisac was an agricultural center, in that it grew crops to feed the city because the terraces were so wide. They were a lot narrower at Ollantaytambo so they were probably used as protection, rather than agriculture. As you look across the Kitamayo gorge, you can see hundreds of holes in the mountain face, looking similar to honeycomb. These were inca tombs that were plundered by grave robbers who found a lot of gold and thinks to use in the afterlife. Pisac was very beautiful, and as we were there in the late afternoon, we were practically the only tourists! It was wonderful!

The sacred valley is certainly an area that I want to go back to. There are so many other places to visit, like Sacsayhuaman, Moray and Chincero. But of course, that will be the subject of another trip!

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Tags: Chincero, El Albergue Bed and Breakfast, Hernando Pizarro, inca tombs, Machu Picchu, Manco Inca, Moray, Ollantaytambo, Peru, Pisac, Rio Chongo valley, Rio Kitamayo gorge, Sacred Valley, Sacsayhuaman, Terracing, Urubamba valley, Vilcabamba