Step I on the way to MP: Ollantaytambo

 In every corner of Cuzco's city centre there's a tour operator yelling about how much they want to take you to Machu Picchu.

Of course by the time we made it to Cuzco, we had already read, asked, googled and guessed all we could about the visit to the ruins. 

The uphill road to MP starts in Machu Picchu Pueblo, a town also known as Aguas Calientes, that can't be accessed by car or bus.

To get there, many people do the "Inca trail", a multiday hike through beautiful surroundings, heaps of walking... and guides and porters to carry your things and cook for you.

As nice and tempting as that must be for many people, we found it extremely non-random (and a bit expensive... and a bit too crowded). 

One other option is the train. Expensive, beautiful (we love trains... especially Chey, who has way more train expertise than I do), and comfortable.

And the other option is getting to the small town of Ollantaytambo, take a bus from there to a hydro-powered dam ( referred to as Hidroeléctrica), and walk your way to Aguas Calientes using the train tracks as a path.

Cheap, with the promise of a lot of nice scenery, and definitely the randomest way to get to MP we could think of: it was definitely the winning option. 

So we took a local bus going from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, and spent two nice days strolling around the cobblestone streets of the little town.

Chey exploring.

Chey realizes I'm taking photos of him and reacts
in a way that proves we're not sick of fame and chased
by paparazzis (yet),

Ollantaytambo is a very, very tiny valley. When you're in the "centre" you can see two sets of ruins, on both sides of the valley.

The first one is low: a set of pretty green terraces carved off the skirts of a mountain. 

Imagine the hard work.

The other set of ruins is uphill: many ancient buildings that seem like they're fading into the brown rocks of the hills. 

Like an indigenous ghost town.

We asked around and funnily enough the easily accessible terrace ruins that were constantly flooded with people were the ones you had to pay to enter. The old buildings up the hill are free to go to.

 A MYSTERY! Maybe it is because most people pass through this town quickly on the way to MP and don't really want to waste time climbing?

Of course, we decided to go to the free of charge and non crowded ruins (surprised?).

At the beginning of the hike up, we found this friendly sign:

The blue one says: Attention: the way to Pinkuylluna is HIGH RISK
(drawing of a skull) Don't go up (visit 7:00 to 5:30)
The red one says visiting hours 7:00 to 4:30 PM.

 There was a bit of a confusing vibe, but we kept going. The sky was grey and it looked like rain, but the weather was nice enough to take our sweaters off while we walked up.

The stairs to get out of the town and into the proper hill.

Hiking gear, TRA style: jeans and glasses,

There were no people up the hill other than us and a group of 4 a couple hundred metres away from us. We explored the buildings to our hearts' content.

We did get a pretty cool view of the terraces in front of us
without the need to endure all of the other tourists.

From higher up, you also get a privileged view
on the little details of the everyday life in Ollanta.

There was a festival going on, and all the way up the hill we could hear
the drums and the brass instruments.

A closer view of the indigenous ghost town.

And there is more!

Chey walks to the ruins,

We may or may not have spent a ridiculous amount of time playing
in the buildings and climbing the windows.

Sitting like a happy Gollum.

A room with a view.

Chilling while Chey tried different angles on the landscape.

Detail of plants we found.

And more.

And more (alien looking lichen)

Laugh in the face of danger (?)

Black and white epic.

Finally our curiosity was satisfied and we started the hike back, as it started to rain.

We settled ourselves at the warm and cozy "Hearts café" to dry and warm ourselves up with coffee and French toasts, rather than going back to our cold, cold room.

Hearts café is a restaurant belonging to an English lady who uses all of the profit for a charity aimed to help mostly women and children of Andean communities.

They have gorgeous food and really nice coffee. We even found an Aussie lady who was in love with their coffee, so that's saying something.

...

The second day, after unsuccesfully trying to have a not-freezing shower at our hostal, we decided we were going to try a different coffee place, since we already had 3 meals at Hearts café.

There are quite a few places arount the central Plaza, but we encountered the same thing as in many other places: targeting the tourists, all of the places offer the exact same thing.

We finally settled for a little place where we saw a couple of special combos for breakfast.

One of the combos was eggs on toast and black coffee.

Somewhere along the manu, they also offered capuccino.

However, there was no way of convincing the waiter that we wanted eggs on toast and capuccino, and we were willing to pay for the difference of adding milk to the black coffee.

He told us we could ONLY have eggs on toast if we had black coffee.

We ended up going to Hearts café again, of course.

...

The rest of our day in Ollantaytambo was spent arranging our transport to the starting point of the walk to Machu Picchu; and then walking, looking at the market and the river and the interesting locals. Afterwards, we tried to go to bed early-ish.

We had a long, long day ahead of us.

Little girl and tabby cat, cuddling.

All of the narrow side streets look like this.

A little door.

Tabby cat camouflages with her environment.

Romantic colonial sepia stuff.

The river on one side of the town.

Coffee time by the river (not Hearts café: the coffee was nice but lukewarm) 

This is the convenience store of the town, FOR REAL.

A visit to the animal sanctuary

Before leaving Cuzco for Machu Picchu, we heard about a rescued animal centre outside the city, on the road to a place called Pisaq. 

We tried to find out if there were buses to get there, but it seemed to be cheaper to take the sanctuary van, so we started looking for places to book tickets to enter.

They aren't very switched on when it comes to advertising, it seems, as it took us a good few hours to figure out that one of the (many) tour agencies/ jewelery stores was selling the tickets. There were no signs or anything, so I consider it pretty lucky that we did find it.

Now they added the address on the website (just in case: the agency is across the road from Plaza de Armas, at 181 Portal Comercio), but then it was all very mysterious.

When the time came for the van to take us there, us and other 5 gringos jumped in and drove down a beautiful road towards the sanctuary, which is in the middle of a very nice countryside-ish area.

He was healed of wounds inflicted on him by local kids,
 but now he can fly again.Still, he comes to the sanctuary
 to get his lunch.  

 First, the caretaker explained the work they do: with a lot of volunteers and the money that comes from the visitors, they maintain a space for rescued animals.

Like this babies. Here we learnt the difference between llamas, alpacas,
vicuñas and guanacos: the first two are sweet, and the second two will
tear you to pieces, kick you and spit on you. Thug life.

Alpaca.
SO FLUFFY!!

 They get a lot of wildlife that ignorant people try to kill or keep as pets in terrible conditions, animals rescued from illegal trafficking or circuses (seriously, people, do not go see circuses with animals!!), and a lot of domestic animals thet are abandoned or mistreated.

Giant turtle.

Oh, deer! (he gave us hand kisses)

Chey becomes friends with the turtle.

Turtle planning world domination.

She was really heavy and didn't mind the cuddles.

Baby vicuña.

Llama pride.

A stork. I asked the caretaker if she was injured
while carrying a baby and he laughed.
I love Peruvian people.

This girl was super friendly. They can't fly anymore because
 their wing feathers were cut, but they still trust people.

She really liked Chey.

The tour lasts around one hour, in which you learn the story of the animals you see, and you get to interact a little with them.

At one point, the caretaker showed us a friendly llama. She lets people hug her and you can take pictures.

I asked if she really didn't mind, and he showed us how she comes when he calls and how much she likes cuddles. Her name was Blanca.

Chey always makes fun of this photo because he says I have
 "llama eyes" (notice how my eyes are half open).
I still love it. 

When it was Chey's turn for a photo, she decided that that was it, and turned
her back on us like this.

The caretaker called her back, and she came to recieve one more hug.

But she still wasn't a big fan of Chey.

 We were very happy to see that they try to get babies of the animals to release them in the wild (many times the adults can't go into the wild anymore).

Like the beautiful pumas. They have an adult male, two females (one
of which was pregnant) and a baby.

This girl was rescued from a circus where some monster had cut her teeth.
 She can't be released into the wild anymore. 

Many pumas are attacked or poisoned by farmers, who
prefer that instead of getting proper fences for their cattle.

It was pretty much impossible to take pictures of the
baby, Mufasa, because he wouln'd stop moving.
Here's him, being fed by the caretaker.

The visit is not too long, but it is very informative, interesting and fulfilling. It's great to see there are people who care about animal welfare even in this area of the planet where many times it seems like there's a long way to go.

What is this?

It's a fancy llama!

She poses next to her friend, the tabby cat.

Super chilled.

Hola! 

The condor, one of the three sacred animals of the "Inca trinity" (the other
two are the snake and the puma). Its feathers are used in chamanistic
rituals. Many unscrupulous chamans keep condors in captivity.

But look at this beauty! Who would want to not see it free?

The girl condor is less glamorous, but still gorgeous.

They can't fly free anymore for various reasons,
 but their enclosure allows them to fly some to keep strong.

Here's two thirds of the Inca trinity.

Chey looks at condor.

Condor looks at Chey.

Our first Peruvian hairless dog.

A bashful puppy.

And an amazing kitty. It took all of my willpower not to take him with us.

At the end of the tour, you can make a donation to the sanctuary, and they give you a little gift.

If we had had more time, we would've loved to volunteer... but it might be next time.