Gate 1 in Peru, Part II: Urubamba and Oyantaytambo



A friend asked if the moral of the last story was to not eat raw vegetables or to avoid wearing a yellow jacket. I plan to continue wearing my own yellow jacket for skiing that I've worn over the last 15 years, so it certainly isn’t the latter.


Ollantaytambo Ruins

In retrospect, I suppose I was basically saying that if you take a tour, you should expect to follow specific rules as part of the group, both for safety and order. Not following rules could lead to personal injury or the scorn of your fellow travelers.  As a bonus for accepting rules, a packaged tour can save you money.

By the time you add up costs of air, transfers, hotels, taxes, meals, local transportation, guides, admissions and incidentals, most packaged tours save money over independent travel. The major difference between different levels of travel packagers like Cosmos, Globus and Classic Vacations comes down to the quality and quantity of arrangements. 

Ollantaytambo Glen

Gate 1 has some of the most aggressively priced packages (amplified by choosing a weekly special like we did), so you would expect more of a bare bones product. Indeed, after we finally jettisoned Mr. Yellow Jacket and left the airport, we were soon being pitched a $17 shopping trip to Pisac, which would be a scenic one hour drive from our hotel. Half the group had signed up for that excursion before leaving home ($15 if pre-purchased), and a few more signed up as we rode, but Julie and I were among six who chose not to participate.


Buffet Restaurant in Urubamba

Because we were running late, Adriel managed to bring the group to a unanimous decision to stop for lunch in the village of Urubamba rather than going all the way to the isolated hotel to drop the six heading straight there.  This lunch was not included with the tour cost, and at $15 per person, I doubt anyone other than tour groups in buses were paying that much for the buffet meal, but the restaurant did feature delicious local foods and a lovely view of the surrounding mountain tops from under our palapa. As I pointed out with the story of the young lady who became deathly ill eating at a non-sanctioned restaurant, being advised the right place to eat can be a valuable service worth a few extra dollars.

Marketplace Below Oyantaytambo Terraces

 

 

Adriel announced that rather than forcing the whole busload to go to the hotel, he would provide taxis for the six of us and continue directly to Pisco. We shared our taxi with a mother and her 25 year-old daughter.



It turned out that Maria and Johanna had emigrated from Poland a few years ago and now live in Connecticut, where our youngest daughter went to college, so we immediately had something in common beyond the trip. This wasn't as great a coincidence as it might sound, because our Miami Express travelers had merged with the New York Express, which similarly had deals with air from NYC.  There were many people from Connecticut and other New England states traveling with us.





Ollantaytambo Spanish Era Bell Tower



Everyone, including Mr. YJ, who actually was not an unpleasant person when he wasn’t clumsily horning in on our group, proved to be friendly and interesting.

 

To paraphrase one premium cruise line ad from a few years ago, it’s not where you go, but with whom you arrive, and we found ourselves among a peer group we very much enjoyed. Ages ranged from twenties to

sixties, with most of the group being baby boomers or their grown children.



Inca Granary

The long drive out of Urubamba made it clear that we could not have walked back to a restaurant, and when our unmarked blue sedan made an improbable left turn onto a washed out gravel…make that rock…road, our taxi bounced uncontrollably at 3 miles an hour, regularly scraping its oil pan due to the deep tire ruts. The hotel was beautiful, comfortable and modern: a pleasant surprise for a discount tour operator’s accommodations. The obvious Achilles heel was proximity to services, but even that was not enough to take it below 4 stars, especially with its rural views made possible by the isolated location.

Despite our limited Spanish, we managed to negotiate for our driver to take us to Ollantaytambo, an Inca city best known for two things.



Profile By Inca Grainery?

It was the home of the greatest Inca emperor, Pachacutec (the preferred spelling in many sources seems to be Pachacuti, but our guide Adriel used this pronunciation throughout, and since his family lived in the Sacred Valley from before the time of the arrival of the Incas, I will take his word for it). After conquering many lands to expand the Inca Empire from the middle of modern day Chile to Columbia, Pachacutec turned his rule over to his sons to pursue personal passions, like building Machu Picchu.



Old Structures In and Above Oyanataytambo

The other primary claim to fame for Ollantaytambo is that it was the site of the only Inca victory over the Spanish conquistadors. Upon treacherously killing the true Inca emperor, the Spanish had installed Manco II as a puppet Inca king, but Manco soon became fed up with being used as an ATM from which the Spanish could withdraw Peru’s treasure.  Manco led an uprising against the vastly outnumbered but technologically superior Spanish.





Site of Manco Inca's Victory Over Conquistadors

On a stolen Spanish horse, Manco rode back and forth at the top of the famous agricultural terraces above the village, holding his spear high and shouting orders to tens of thousands of followers who rained rocks and spears down on the Spanish.

We had been unsuccessful in planning a way to visit Ollantaytambo in advance, and based on the isolated location of the hotel, it obviously would have been difficult to hail a taxi, so it turned out that by delaying our airport departure, Mr. Yellow Jacket's antics had serendipitously resulted in our having a taxi driver who agreed to take us immediately to that archaeological site.  Moral: unwelcome distractions may provide keys to reaching your goals.
 

Oyantaytambo Village

We dropped our bags in our modern room and were soon off to Ollantaytambo village, but actual admission to walk the terraces above the village was about $40 per person, so we decided to simply photograph them from below. We were pretty tired from our redeye flight regardless. 

We roamed around Ollantaytambo snapping pictures, and enjoyed a frothy latte at a sidewalk cafe in the small plaza. Impressive artisan products tempted us, but the brightly-colored handmade blanket I would have bought was vetoed by Julie, who rationally said we had nowhere to display it in our small condo in Redondo.


Garden at Our Urubamba Hotel

Our driver showed up at the appointed meeting place on time to return us to our hotel. Fifty bucks U.S. for the taxi made the young man smile, and for us it was a good deal, regardless of that being considerably more than we originally agreed to pay for what proved to be a two hour excursion.


We headed out to the balcony of our room to soak in the lovely views, and we were already heading over to the small lobby bar for drinks after dark by the time the shopping excursion bus returned. Julie didn't want to take a chance on the featured happy hour 2-for-1 Pisco Sours this early in the trip, because they include raw egg, so we split a full priced glass of mediocre house wine.



Our Urubamba Hotel's Banquet Room

Our dinner that night in the banquet room was included, so Julie and I walked over to join those gathering there. We took seats with another couple and began engaging in an interesting conversation. When the guide got up to say a few words, we realized he wasn't Adriel or John Claude. Looking around the room, we didn't recognize anyone from our bus. We had accidentally joined tourists from the other bus. With embarrassed smiles, we excused ourselves and left.



Our Urubamba Hotel

We met our group an hour later in the same room, and we enjoyed a delicious meal (with a choice of three entrees) in pleasant company. We were joined at our table by Maria and Johanna, and a father and son (both named John), who were also from Connecticut, so we discussed Huskies basketball and segued into many areas of mutual interest, most notably travel.

If you choose a tour (or cruise)  that truly appeals to you personally, then quite likely you'll find you have a lot in common with your fellow travelers, and in a few short days you will have bonded new friendships.