Ollantaytambo!

We spent a wonderful week in the town of Ollantaytambo which is one of the last stops before you HAVE to take a train to see Machu Pichu. It is a wonderful little town and we were even fortunate enough to be there during their Señor de Choquekillca celebration. Señor de Choquekillca looks suspicially like Jesus, but isn't. They spend four days, essentially day and night, dancing, playing music, and drinking. This year there were fifteen different dance groups, each wearing a different costume. At one point, Kevin wasn't at my side and three masked men started to shake my hand, kiss my hand, sit down next to me and kiss my cheek. I told Kevin they almost took me away with them! I found one website that had some old pictures from the 2003 (scroll down to Sacred Valley) festival, http://www.csufresno.edu/perutour/peru99b.htm. I, unfortunately, wasn't as picture happy. The masks and costumes were incredible!

On Monday, we tried our luck by using expired tourist tickets to see the inca ruins of Ollantaytambo. I think Kevin's good looks charmed the wonderful peruvian lady to let us pass. The ruins were, as usual, absolutely amazing. It is awe inspiring how this mountain people built up their communities on the side of steep sloped mountains. The rocks weren't tiny stones either.

Tuesday, we tried out some rental bikes from a guy from Minnesota. He came down here three years ago, loved the biking, and decided to open up his own adventure shop. It was nice to have someone give us tourist information in english.. rather than having to decipher what is being said to us! We were happily on our way up the valley and enjoying the warm day. Kevin shouted, watch out, and last thing I knew, I was swerving around his pedal. He managed to put the pedal back on with a rock, but the screw was definately gone. Should have had them check out that squeeky noise a bit more before we started. After about another 20 minutes, his seat was trying to come undone. He fixed that with my trusty army knife, too bad about five minutes later the seat was loose again and the pedal fell off. All of that uphill riding and we had to go back down. We had them switch out bikes and started off again. After about two hours riding up the valley, we took a break before heading back down. I think I should have just stayed on the bike rather than having to re-numb my butt all over again. It was a rough ride down. Kevin was just screaming down the valley as I continued to test my brakes the whole way. It was a great way to pass the time. On Tuesday evening, we headed up to Aguas Calientes via night train. We saw the Machu Pichu ruins on Wednesday and then got the extremely early train back to Ollantaytambo on Thursday.