Ollantaytambo

Spent the day exploring this beautiful town. Ollantaytambo has been continuously inhabited since the 13th century. Many of the houses are built on Inca stone foundations.

Toured the archeological site which has extensive Inca ruins for over 2 hours. This site was a agricultural, administrative, social, religious and military centre in the era of the Tahuantinsuya (Inca) empire and the scene of some famous battles as the Inca King retreated from the invading Spanish in the late 15th century.

These ruins were the best we'd seen so far.

 

Amazing Inca terracing

 

More than 200 steps up the terraces to the viewing platform

View of the Scared Valley looking west. Macchu Pichu lies behind the distant snowcapped mountain

 

 

Old storehouses  - view from the Inca site. 

After lunch, we hiked up the mountain opposite the Inca site which had more ruins built into the hillside.
The path was very steep and in the afternoon sun, it was quite warm, but the climb was worth it with magnidficent views of the town, Inca site and the Valley. There were storehouses and other buildings to explore. We got about halfway up and the guys decided to climb to an old Inca sentry point, which was located close to the summit. The notorious Sacred Valley afternoon breeze had sprung up and it was quite windy. Us girls decided we had done enough and left the three amigos to complete their challenge.
We met them at the bottom about 1 hour later, their mission accomplished.

The storehouses

The three amigos

Taking in the view from the storehouses

Looking up at the the Inca sentry gate (on the right) from the storehouses

Andrew....

and Jack at the sentry gate

The view from the sentry gate looking down at the town with the Inca site in the background

Happy hour with Pisco Sours to rehydrate, more cards and dinner at the Camerons accommodation, a B&B located on the train platform.