After a delicious breakfast, we met our driver at 9am and headed out to see some local ruins. I am finding that the more time I spend here, the more comfortable I get with Spanish. Thanks, West Hartford public schools, for starting kids in language in 4th grade. Taking Spanish for 8 years paid off, because while my verbal skills are not great, I can understand enough to get by and can ask for the necessities. I’m definitely signing up for Spanish classes when I get home! I don’t really need (or want) to learn the myriad verb forms, but the basic past, present, and future tenses are things I used to (vaguely) know, and are all I really need to get by in the Spanish-speaking world.

We set off from Ollantaytambo, passing the absurd Sky Lodge. This “hotel” consists of 4 pods on the side of the mountain. Each pod has 4 beds and a “bathroom” and is accessible by climbing. Nope, not for us!

First up: Salineras de Maras.

This is an Incan-era site built around a natural salt spring.

The land around it is terraced and divided into hundreds of pools into which the natural salt water flows. 3 days of exposure to the sun is all it takes for the water to evaporate and the natural salt to be left behind.

When I say this site is massive, that is an understatement. It’s incomprehensibly large. And then it goes on further!

Our next stop was Maras, an Incan ruin consisting of concentric terraced circles. There are no signs, so there’s little context for the what and the why of the place, but it’s almost unnecessary – the scale and precision of the site are awe-inspiring enough.

There are several of these circular formations on the same large plot of land. Each terrace looks small from above, but at ground level, they appear to be 4-6’ tall, requiring stairs to be built in to each level to provide access to the level above.

On our way back to town, we stopped at a nice viewpoint where the whole valley was laid out. This is really a beautiful part of the world, and while I’m sure Machu Picchu will be amazing, it sort of steals the thunder from the rest of the Sacred Valley.

After lunch, we went to the town’s namesake ruins, which are basically a block off the main town square.

Ollantaytambo was the site of the only defeat of the Spanish forces by the Incan people. This was a military stronghold, and given the location, I can’t imagine how the Spanish could’ve managed a successful attack here. It is built into and on the cliff side and is exceptionally steep!

At the top, there is a Temple of the Moon, the famous Temple of the Sun, military fortresses, and housing for royalty. How the Incan people managed to lay these stones in this terrain to build such magnificent structures is amazing!

The stairs were steep and punishing to some barely-acclimatized sea level folks like us, so we headed back down to explore the vendors set up outside the ruins. Of course, we made a few small purchases before heading back toward our hotel.

Right by our hotel is an intriguing place called Casa de Cuye – House of Guinea Pig. This place raises Guinea pigs for food, but they had the brilliant idea to set the restaurant in the back and allow tourists in the front to see all the critters. I’ve never seen so many Guinea pigs!!

The whole place had a constant, gentle squeaking sound emanating from the large room where all the fuzzy little critters were kept. They were adorable, and I had no idea they came in an extra fluffy grey variety!

Early to bed tonight because tomorrow is Machu Picchu and a whole lot of traveling. I really enjoyed Ollantaytambo and the Sacred Valley, and I think it gets overlooked because of its proximity to Machu Picchu. I suppose that’s good for us because it meant to town wasn’t totally overrun with massive tour busses, but I do wish more people would experience the beauty and majesty of this place.

While elevation might not have venomous barbs or a stinger, it’s a danger to take seriously nonetheless. So our plan for the next few days is to fly into Cusco (elevation: 12,000+ feet) and then immediately get into a car and drive down to Ollantaytambo (elevation: 10,000 feet) as we acclimate to the elevation before going to Machu Picchu on Sunday.

We met our driver and set off. He made a remark about the heat, but when I told him we’d come from Puerto Maldonado, he acknowledged that Cusco heat is nothing in comparison. Still, the sun is stronger at this elevation, and temps in the low 70s are really quite hot.

As we drove along, I seemed to stroll down memory lane a bit. Thinking about the strength of the sun at such elevations made me think of the time we hiked Lomas Blancas in Argentina with the Kells and how Amanda and I got horribly sunburned on our exposed forearms and faces. The twisty, steep streets in Cusco also reminded me of the streets in Medellin, although in Cusco they were certainly wider.

On the planes here, I was digging deeper and deeper into New York Times articles about the region. Colombia is (and always has been) one of the centers of cocaine production. They have had more than their fair share of troubles, including violent gangs and rampant corruption. I didn’t know (but probably should have) that Peru is the second largest exporter of cocaine after Colombia. Comforting. But Peru’s troubles of late have been mostly political and much less gang violence. What was sad to read about is Ecuador (where we almost went instead of Peru).

Sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, Ecuador had a long history of being relatively stable and safe. After a series of politically-motivated events, a former president closed the US military base in 2009, leaving Ecuador with little anti-narco power. That president instituted austerity measures and cut back on domestic police and military to try to pay down the nation’s debt. Taken together, these actions provided a perfect opportunity for drug trafficking gangs to emerge. These gangs use Ecuador’s increasing prison population to recruit and train members, strengthening their power, and they now exert tremendous power across the country. The current president was going to be impeached, so there are new elections coming, and an outspoken candidate was just assassinated. I’ve read nothing that suggests it was anything other than gang retribution. All of this saddens me so much. I’ve really learned to love South America, and particularly Colombia. The people are lovely, the country is beautiful, and the narcos ruin it all for so many. While I have little reason to hope that Ecuador will find a way out of this morass anytime soon, I have to hope.

Ok, enough depressing political news. As we drove along from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, the kids slept. That’s too bad, because the drive was beautiful in parts (the cities were cities, full of noisy trucks, crazy motorcycles, and traffic). These towns and cities are nestled into every nook and cranny these mountains have to offer.

We finally arrived in Ollantaytambo, walking the last 3 blocks to our lodge because the roads are not fit for cars. The area we are staying in is built on the original Inca village, with their stone foundations and aqueducts in plain view.

Apu Lodge is adorable. It’s built on top of the old Inca stonework and has an aqueduct right outside that I can hear from the room. From our balcony, we look straight over the town to the ruins built into the hillside.

I did some (desperately needed) laundry while Luke and Anna-Sophia rested. Altitude seems to have hit them harder than it hit me, which surprised us all since I’m the one with vertigo and motion sickness issues. Very strange!

We decided to walk into town for an early dinner since we knew we would all be off to bed early. A blog I read strongly recommended a restaurant on the Plaza de Armas and we decided to give that a try. We are at the far end of town from the plaza, but it would not possibly have taken us more than 7 minutes to walk there. And we are all moving slowly today!

Dinner was AMAZING!! Anna-Sophia had quinoa-breaded chicken fingers (we had a very good time with the Spanish “deditos de pollo” and debated where chickens keep their fingers). Luke had a ceviche-type dish, and I had some kind of potato-wrapped avocado with veggies. It was all really delicious!

Tomorrow we have a very civilized 9am start to the day to go to 2 local sites – a ruin and a terraced salt pan. Then we will be back in town for lunch and some local sights. But now, it’s 8:21pm and that’s bedtime!!

After our airline saga, we finally arrived at Hotel Enai, only 8 hours late. We are staying along Rio Madre de Dios, which runs through the Peruvian Amazon toward Bolivia. This region is just outside of Puerto Maldonado, a town which has grown from a modest 20,000 people a few decades ago to a city of over 100,000 people, thanks in large part to gold mining in the area. Driving in, one certainly got the impression of a town that was not flush with cash.

Our hotel is delightful. There’s a pool, Wi-Fi and, more importantly, air conditioning. we tried out all 3 within the first hour of arrival and were quite pleased.

While we knew the weather would be hot (Amazon jungle in August seems to have that vibe), I can’t really explain how incredibly hot it is here. It never gets below 75, and the humidity similarly is in the 70%-80% range at all times. That means that a breeze, which should feel delightful, instead feels a bit more like the rush of hot air you get when you open the over door and stick your head right into the heat to check your muffins. When it got up to 100, we were all wilting. How people in the Gulf states do this is beyond me.

We started the day with a trip out to the parrot clay lick. This involved a pre-dawn boat ride down the river to where the birds gather. At some point, they start to fly down and cling to the side of the cliff side to eat the clay for its critical sodium and calcium nutrients.

There are so many kinds of parakeets, parrots, and macaws! I can’t recall them all now, but I do remember that some have stunning blue and green feathers on their backsides with scarlet feathers underneath. My photos don’t do this setting justice at all.

Along the way back, our guide somehow managed to spot a sloth, so we pulled over to watch it. They won’t win any races, but they are cute!

After a hearty breakfast, Luke and Anna-Sophia went to take a nap (what else is there to do as the weather heats up into the triple digits?) and I went to sit by the pool and read. I made it about an hour outside and then gave up and joined in siesta hour.

Luke and I indulged in a post-nap/pre-lunch swim, then we all went for a quick lunch before we launched on our second activity of the day: Lake Sandoval. This lake is well-known for having abundant wildlife and being generally unspoiled by humans because it is fully contained inside Tambopata National Reserve.

Along the river ride to the park, our guide spots a caiman on the river bank.

Not 10 minutes after we set out into the park did one member of our party try to kill himself. We stopped to talk about a giant ficus tree when Luke put his hand on a railing, discovering the hard way that a caterpillar was sitting there. Now this was no fluffy, benign caterpillar, but a caterpillar who packed a painful punch via its venemous spines. Ouch!

Once we were all convinced Luke would survive, we started the 3km walk to the lake. To ensure we get full props for making that walk, remember that it’s about 100 degrees out with 80% humidity. Sweat pours off of you, but does absolutely nothing to cool you off since the air is already so saturated.

Along our walk, we encountered Brown Capuchin monkeys and Howler monkeys. Anna-Sophia felt they were benign enough to not get caught up in her dislike for old world monkeys.

There were birds, monkeys, turtles, and more caimans. We had hoped to see the giant otters, but they were nowhere to be seen; hopefully they were someplace a little less suffocatingly hot! We still saw tons of cool animals, and the lake is gorgeous, so no complaints here!

After watching a troop of squirrel monkeys (so cute!), we paddled across the lake and back toward the boat dock. At this point, the sun had set and so we walked back to the boat by flashlight. For the record, I don’t like the jungle at night. Creepy-crawly critters are everywhere!!

We got back to the hotel, had dinner, packed, and are now exhausted. I really wish we had ended up with 2 days here as planned instead of just 1, but it was worthwhile all the same. Just like the Arctic, I don’t truthfully know how long rainforest jungle will exist, and I want to see it while I can.

Our trip to Peru has nowhere to go but up. After boarding our flight, we sat. And sat. And sat. Turns out, one of the brakes on the plane wasn’t working. We sat there in increasing anxiety as our long layover dwindled, and our anxiety was fully realized when the pilot told us we would have to deplane. For the record, this is the 2nd time this month that I’ve had to deplane. No me gusta.

Ultimately, Delta’s only flight option involved an overnight layover in Atlanta, an extra layover in Miami, and an arrival in Lima that was over 16 hours later than planned. That wouldn’t work given our plans, so we ended up booking a new flight on Avianca and we will deal with Delta later (my status there has – and will continue to – come in handy).

So we are about to depart on our midnight flight to Bogotá, then we will connect on to Lima. I do hope scientists are working on teleportation because flying is just not a good experience. I’ll take my chances being accidentally disintegrated (or whatever goes wrong in teleportation) over subjecting myself to airlines over and over again.

But now, our plane is pushing back and so we are off!