Hotel Tika Wasi, Ollantaytambo
This is a great little town. Our train arrived fairly much on time to be met by the usual scrum of taxi touts and Collectivo drivers. A Collectivo is a 15-20 seat bus that is a kind of large share taxi. They wait at points known to locals, or where tourists arrive en masse. When they fill up they take off for a location that is on a sign or just yelled out by the driver.
We weren't after a lift today because we were having a couple of nights in Ollantaytambo. Most people don't stay overnight here. It is more a quick stop on a circuit around the Sacred Valley. No surprise, but we are doing the normal circuit differently, so our timing called for two nights here. Good call!
Even though this is unquestionably a tourist town, the tourists seem to come and go at predictable times of the day. Between these times life goes on much as it has for centuries. Farmers and craftswomen in traditional dress come to town to sell their goods, well-dressed school kids heading home for lunch run through the square, ignoring the odd bus or truck that crawls by and the traffic police blow their whistles for reasons that escape us, because nobody takes any notice of them. Art touts introduce themselves as Pablo Picasso or Elizabeth Taylor and if you aren't interested, they stay on for a bit of a chat and some repartee anyhow. We eventually came across Elizabeth's little studio later on the day and bought a couple of pieces.
We actually came for the Inca ruins, which were great as well, but the experience of hanging around town and meeting fellow travellers like the young French woman who fell in with us as we scrambled over the ruins, the Malaysians who lived and worked in London and several others, just over the past couple of days, who, whether they spoke English or not, made a connection that is what travel is all about.
Tomorrow we will wander back to the railway station at a time when a train is due, to take advantage of the numbers of collectivos that will be there to meet the traion. Then back to Cusco.
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