Today we head out from Ollaytantambo to Santa Teresa. We were not sure how long the drive would actually take, but wanted to make the trip in daylight as the last road we must drive has a reputation as being very dangerous. Multiple people have warned us about driving on this road. Before we left, I took a few minutes in daylight to check out the area where we stayed.
The Ollantaytambo Ruins are on the edge of town and we were hoping to visit them when we came back through this way a few days later. There is also a statue of Cura Ocllo. She was the sister and wife to one of the last rulers of the Inca empire, Manco Inca Yupanqui. He started out as a puppet for the Spanish, but later rebelled and spent the rest of his life trying to defeat them. At one point, Manco was forced to turn Cura Ocllo over to the Spaniards, where she was shot with arrows for resisting rape.
On a lighter note, this part of Peru was our first exposure to the small moto-taxis. They look like modified motorcycles with a shell and have room for two in the back seat. We’ll take a ride in one of these later in the day after we arrive in Santa Teresa.
Cura Ocllo 
The hostel 
View over the city 
Ollantaytambo 
View over the city 
Ollantaytambo ruins 
Terraces 
Terraces 
Taxi 
Taxi 
Taxi
After breakfast we hit the road to Santa Teresa. It was a beautiful and curvy drive. There were small mountainside waterfalls everywhere and more than one opportunity to drive through significant clouds. Something that I found fascinating was how some of the mountain waterfalls are not diverted from the roadways. Instead they are allowed to run across the road as if it was a natural part of the terrain. Fortunately, we didn’t run into spots were the water was overly deep, but it was one of the dangers we were warned about because the water can be much more powerful during the rainy season.
Roadside stands and hillside crops 
Go down, head back up 
Yes, we drove this road! 
Clouds 
Good view of the dropoff 
…and more clouds 
Water fall running across the road 
Last stretch to Santa Teresa
Here’s snippet of the Google map for this trip. I laugh every time I see this. This was not uncommon for our daily drives.
This might be a good time to discuss why we went to Santa Teresa in the first place.
There are many ways to reach Machu Picchu, but they seem to fall into three categories:
The first route is to hike the Inca trail. This hike can take anywhere from 1 to 4 days depending on where a person starts. We discussed this as an option, but given time constraints and injuries it was decided this was not the best option.
The second route is to take a train from either Cusco or Ollantaytambo to the city of Aguas Calientes, which is a gateway of sorts to Machu Picchu. Train is the only mode of transportation, besides walking, one can take to Aguas Calientes. Once there, the typical next step is to take a bus to the entry gates of Machu Picchu, but hiking is an option as well. The train ride, which is less than 2 hours long, is expensive relative to other things in Peru. A round trip ticket starts at $160 and the cost skyrockets if you want to take one of the luxury trains. The cost of the train seemed a bit excessive to us, and after a bit of research we found a way that sounded a bit more fun.
The third category is a collection of off-the-beaten path hikes (not the Inca Trail) that ultimately get you to Machu Picchu. Some are through the jungle and others are more straight forward. It is possible to hike the 32km along the train tracks from Ollantaytambo if one chooses. One such option starts out in the town of Santa Teresa, north of Machu Picchu. From Santa Teresa it’s a 20 minute taxi ride to local hydro-electric dam where hikers can follow a path next to the train tracks into Aguas Calientes. This was our route of choice.
We arrived safely in Santa Teresa and checked into the hostel. There are some hot springs in the area that Tracy wanted to check out. The hot springs here are underground, so they have to capture the water in manufactured pools. In this case they did a nice job of integrating the pools into the natural beauty around them. We took a ride in a moto-taxi to the hot springs. The video says it all.
View from our window 
Hostel across the street 
Down the street 
Our friendly moto-taxi driver 
Happy to be in a moto-taxi 
Hot spring 
Hot spring 
After returning from the hot spring, again via moto-taxi, we wandered down the main street to find a restaurant. The food was very tasty, but the owner had her hands full dealing with a drunk husband. We ate at the restaurant multiple times and he was a fixture, always trying to chat with the customers. Harmless, but somewhat annoying.
The hike is tomorrow, so it was off to bed.
Stay tuned.