Ollantaytambo

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Further down the “sacred valley” towards Machu Picchu is the small town of Ollantaytambo. We stayed here a couple of nights. In the afternoon the ruins above the town are swarming with tourists but early in the morning and in the evening the town is quite relaxed. We met a rather nice girl called Marella from Holland who we sampled what wine was on offer with (Peruvian wine - big No,No, Bolivian wine - a bit patchy. Its got to be Chilean or Argentinean). Early the next morning I hiked up the hill behind the ruins to watch the sun rise over some twelve sided stones while Laurence stayed in bed. There were only four other people with the same idea as me so it was pretty quiet and nice. Ollantaytambo is the only settlement with the original Inca layout. It is a trapezoid shape with the town square at the bottom end and the rest of the town sectioned into blocks with narrow passageways separating them with people still live in original Inca houses. The ruins above are basically a ceremonial site that was later used as a fortress by the inca Manco against the Spanish. The story goes that when the Spanish arrived to attack early in the morning Manco opened gates that diverted the river through prepared channels to flood the plain below the fortifications, swamping all the Spanish cavalry and forcing them to retreat.

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