JULY 17 - 18 2009

July 17 2009
Today, the group went to see the ruins at Ollantaytambo. I'd been there before, but did not go into the ruins. Ollantaytambo is one of the most beautiful towns. It's nestled in the valley of the Andes. Ruins speckle the mountain sides all around. The main ruins are HUGE. They consist of seemingly neverending terraces. When I get better internet and can upload pictures, I will, but until then, you'll just have to take my word when I say they're impressively massive. We wandered around for awhile, and stayed the night in a little hostel, Hostel Tambo.

July 18 2009

A few of us hiked up a mountain with some other ruins on it. You didn't have to pay to get into these ruins; it's probably because it's a hike and not child-safe. It was fantastic because we 4 were really the only ones on the mountain side at these ruins. The view from them is fantastic. you can see all of Ollantaytambo and the main ruins. I got to sit ontop of a building...something you definitely couldn't do if you needed a tourist ticket to get in.
Then, Georgia and I went Pisac, another town in the Sacred Valley that has ruins.
We took a bus there, and wandered around the HUGE open market they have every Sunday. Then we took a taxi to the ruins. The ruins were fantastic! They were spaced out pretty far, so it took us about 1.5hrs to get through them all. They spaced out along a mountian. We got there around 4pm. so the sun was beginnig to set. it was the perfect time to see these ruins. There weren't that many tourists, which made the trip that much better. At one point, we got sorta lost in part of the ruins, and it was rather funny trying to find our way out of the maze-like structures.