Cusco and Ollantaytambo - The Perez Family in Peru, Part V

Here’s the fifth installation in The Perez Family in Peru series, written by the very talented, Michael J. Perez, as travel through Cusco and Ollantaytambo, slowly making our way to our final destination, el Gran Show if you will, Machu Picchu. Enjoy!

After our 10-hour luxury train ride from Puno, we arrived in Cusco, took a cab and checked into Los Niños Hotel. This was a really cute place with nice rooms and a courtyard that we could hang out in, read, have coffee, breakfast, etc. Unfortunately, this was my second go-around with an “internal excursion” and I didn’t get much sleep that night but, luckily, I didn’t wake Chris up.

Check out the hipsters (aka Jamie and Marlee) enjoying beverages and reading in the courtyard

On our first full day we walked around quite a bit of the town on a long hike checking out some sites, including churches, buildings, plazas and a few markets along the way. We also found another Starbucks. Chris was very happy and so was I, because this day was a “hey guys, I’m back to solids”  day.

Note the smile on Chris’s face.  Is it because we are on the trip of a lifetime, visiting our first born for the first time in 9+ months, or maybe because she has her favorite caffeinated drink in hand? You be the judge.

Arco de Santa Clara

The main plaza in Cusco, the Plaza de Armas, is beautiful. Great spot for pictures of the plaza as well as the surrounding hills. More walking and site seeing on our second day, and of course eating (hey, we’re human beings). We went to a chocolate museum, which showed how the chocolate is made and offered lots of chocolate items, including chocolate tea which, of course, Jamie loved. 

At the Plaza de Armas

The rainbow flags that hang in the Plaza de Armas is representative of the Inca flag and can be seen throughout Cusco

Cusco's large mercado (market)

Ancient stone walls in Cusco, very cool.

Just how narrow the streets are in Cusco

Making our way up (little did we know this would be a warm-up for things to come...)

View from the top

The next day we headed out for a 2+ hour ride in a collectivo/combi to Ollantaytambo, which would serve as our base camp for Machu Picchu. It was a nice, scenic, yet harrowing ride through the mountains (really, not a lot of standards for how they drive here).  Ollantaytambo is a beautiful little town.  It is surrounded by mountains (which are really close and quite extraordinary to look at) and two large Inca ruins. 

On several of the mountains close to the town, you can see Inca ruins. 

The huge, steep terraces that guard Ollantaytambo’s spectacular Inca ruins mark one of the few places, where in 1536, the Spanish conquistadors lost a major battle. You can read more about it here.

The entrance to the ruins in Ollantaytambo, right down the street from where we stayed.

Ollantaytambo is a very charming village with many of the side streets paved with cobblestone and has been inhabited continuously since the 13th century. It is a thoroughfare between Cusco and the jungle, and because there are no alternative roads there is quite a lot of traffic passing through the streets. So depending on the time of day, we might be dodging tour buses, delivery trucks, motorcycles and other forms of transportation on some narrow roads.

Lots of the side streets off of the main town square were narrow with stone paving.

Looking out over the plaza

Jamie enjoys lemonade on the balcony while surveying the town square (don’t mind my finger in top corner).

We really enjoyed walking around town and visiting several of the cafés for coffee and snacks. The town itself is quite small, and we were able to see most of it by foot in a very short time. We checked out an art studio and bought some paintings from the owner (Chris got them framed when we came back from the trip and they are currently hanging in our living room).

Next stop, Machu Picchu!