Sacred Valley

Aha, now we're on to the part of the trip that I planned! Major props to Tim -- he has done the lion's share of planning and booking on our two-month adventure, and he's done a truly excellent job. But for our Cusco leg, he handed over the reins to me. 

I started reading up on Cusco and Machu Picchu back in November, and then got super serious about it in December just before we left. I booked one hotel room for one night back in December, and that's all I accomplished before taking off for Quito.

So, while we were on our Peru Hop tour, I had to nail down our plans. I ended up cancelling the booking for the one hotel room, and rearranged the itinerary I had in my mind. Wanna hear how that went? Here goes...

On Sunday, February 13, we flew from Lima to Cusco, arriving close to 1pm. Cusco is just over 11,000 feet of elevation, and since we'd been at sea level for several weeks, I had planned for us to immediately leave Cusco and head for the lower-in-elevation Sacred Valley of the Incas, also known as the Sacred Valley. The Sacred Valley is located between high mountains and is dotted by small towns, through which the Urubumba River flows. It's got a ton of Inca-era archaeological sites, the most famous of which is Machu Picchu.

I used Viator.com to book us private transport from the Cusco airport to Ollantaytambo [O-yan-tay-tom-bo], with a stop to visit the Pisac ruins and market in between. Viator is a Trip Advisor company through which you can book tours and activities, and I have to say, it worked great for us! Our driver, Hernand, scooped us up from the airport and drove us about one hour to Pisac. He stopped at the Pisac ruins and let us out to explore. These ruins are considered to be one of the finest Incan archeologic sites in Peru. When we stepped into the ruins, we were just in awe. Of course, we had no idea what we were looking at (had to jump online later to understand), but it didn't matter -- the fact that these ruins were masterfully built in the 15th century simply astounds. 

Overlooking Pisac from the ruins.

Terraces at the Pisac ruins.

After about 20 minutes of walking around the ruins, the rain came -- slowly at first and then more forcefully. Ten minutes of rain did us in, as the kids and I had left our rain jackets in the van (rookie move, I know) and we were all cold and wet. We spent just 30 minutes total in the Pisac ruins before jumping back into the van. 

Taylor is not thrilled about being wet and cold.

From the ruins, Hernand took us to the Pisac Market, one of the most famous markets in the Cusco region. We walked through a couple streets; Taylor bought a hat and Wyatt bought gloves. But here, too, the rain was getting to us and we opted to get going for our final destination: Ollantaytambo.

A 90-ish minute drive from Pisac, Ollantaytambo is a quaint village dominated by two massive Inca ruins, and is the best surviving example of Inca city planning, with narrow cobblestone streets that have been continuously inhabited since the 13th century.

Hernand dropped us off at our hotel: Casa De Don David. I was pretty proud of myself for booking this place -- it was close to the center of town, got great reviews, and was only USD$40 a night! And then we got to our room. Tim looked around the room and asked, "Does this room have heat?" "Heat?" I repeated. "Yeah, heat. It's one of the first things you should check on when booking a hotel in this area. It gets really cold at night." Ummmm. It hadn't even dawned on me to verify heating -- and no, no, Casa De Don David did not have heat. In that moment, we were all crushed, as we were still wet from the Pisac ruins and cold and hungry.

There was only one thing we could do, and that was to go get dinner. We wore our jackets and hats at the dinner table because the restaurant didn't have heat either. But the restaurant did have a TV connected to the internet, and we (really, Tim and the kids) were able to watch a live play-by-play of the Super Bowl (because, you know, football).

Our Super Bowl dinner.

Back in our hotel room that night, we dressed warmly for bed. Turns out we dressed too warmly and didn't need to worry about the temperature of our room; it was fine...and we ended up hot, not cold.

On Monday morning, we got up and got moving. A tour guide, Janet, met us at our hotel at 9am. I had booked Janet through Ollantaytambo Travel, a Sacred Valley tour operator run by a man named Rene. When I had asked Rene about getting a guide to tour the Ollantaytambo ruins, he offered up his wife; he said she could practice her English on us and in turn, we'd get a free tour. I like free, so I said yes.

Janet walked us the half mile to the ruins' entrance. We bought our tickets (not cheap) and went inside. These ruins were massive, just massive. Ollantaytambo was a very important agricultural, military, and religious center during the time of the Inca Empire. It is believed that the fortress there was a refuge for the Inca nobility. We spent a couple of hours in the ruins, walking around, and then said our goodbyes to Janet. We stopped at a cafe for a snack, and then visited the Peru Rail office down by the train station.

From the Ollantaytambo ruins, you can see terraces and also part of the town itself.

Looking out over Ollantaytambo from the Temple of the Sun. The Incas carried stone from a quarry 6km away to build the Temple and other areas of the fortress.

In front of the unfinished Temple of the Sun. Look how large these rocks are, and how perfectly they fit together. (Mind, blown.)

Walking through the ruins.

Looking down over ceremonial baths.

The most famous bath at the Ollantaytambo ruins.

Not your typical Inca statues...

Ok, here's a little backstory: I had gone around and around on Machu Picchu. 'Do I book the whole kit and caboodle through a travel agency?' 'Should I book a hotel through which I can get Machu Picchu tickets and a guide?' 'Should we just get private transport from Ollantaytambo into Machu Picchu Town?' 'Do I need tickets now or do we wait till we get to Machu Picchu Town?' The options are enough to make you (me) crazy. In the end, I decided to piece together the entire visit to Machu Picchu on my own. It's doable to do it this way, but definitely not the easiest route. If you ever visit Machu Picchu, depending on the time and brain damage you want to invest in planning, you may just want to pay up and have a travel agency handle all logistics for you (especially if you're visiting in the high season).

But at any rate, I had purchased Peru Rail roundtrip train tickets from Ollantaytambo to Machu Picchu Town (Aguas Calientes) and back while at the Lima airport on Sunday. On the return trip, since it's the rainy season here, I'd have to book bimodal transportation from Machu Picchu to Cusco, meaning I could take the train from Machu Picchu Town to Ollantaytambo, and would then transfer to a bus in Ollantay bound for Cusco. But the Peru Rail employee at the airport told me I wouldn't have time to get from train to bus in Ollantay if I also needed to pick up my luggage from storage. I made her repeat that statement to me three times because it sounded crazy -- I couldn't pick up my luggage between getting off the train and getting on the bus?!

And the luggage issue had come up for us because Peru Rail says that passengers can only carry one bag on the train, and this bag must be 11 pounds or less. I kid you not.

So: Back at the Peru Rail train station in Ollantaytambo, the woman at the ticket counter assured me that yes, I'd have time to grab luggage between train and bus. I added four bus tickets to Cusco to my reservation and called it a day.

From there, Tim went back to our hotel to get on a zoom call, and the kids and I went to ChocoMuseo, where we took a 45 minute workshop to learn about cacao and make our own chocolate. The workshop was simple but fun, and it kept us out of the rain for a little while. Plus, we got to leave with all the super delicious chocolate we made.

Ready to pour some chocolate!

The finished products.

Before heading back to our hotel for some downtime, we bought four face shields -- required for our Peru Rail train rides. That afternoon, I emailed Peru Rail to ask for a special authorization to take our luggage -- four backpacks, Tim's laptop bag, and my tote bag -- to Machu Picchu. I just prayed I'd hear back before it was time to head to the station the following day.

We enjoyed dinner in Ollantaytambo's main square that night; Tim, the adventurous eater in our family, had the alpaca (and really liked it).

Back at Casa De Don David Monday night, we eschewed heat (not that we had a choice) and climbed into bed. On Tuesday morning, we'd head back to the Ollantaytambo train station, and keep all fingers and toes crossed that we could get to Machu Picchu with our luggage and sanity. Bring on more Incas!