Tag archives for Ollantaytambo
McKenna: The Train Ride
Posted by “All Aboard!” There it was! The Vistadome–a long strand of painted blue metal sitting heavily on the tracks at the Ollanta Station, waiting zealously for us to climb aboard, eager to carry us from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes, a small village at the foot of Machu Picchu.
Never in my life had I ever ridden on a train before, so getting to ride one in Peru was an absolute thrill! Our train twisted for more than an hour on a snake-like railroad track up the side of a mountain and revealed to us a stunning panoramic of the Peruvian countryside.
Photo by Grace K
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Allillanchu! That is Quechua for hello. Quechua is the native language of the Incas before the Spaniards arrived in 1532.
We had a nice breakfast at the Libertador Hotel. I had watermelon with sugar and prickly pear cactus root. It tasted like the white part of watermelon, but it was red and had tons of seeds. We have been trying many different foods that you don’t eat in America. For example, they served alpaca, llama, and guinea pig. (I didn’t try the guinea pig because they are pets in America.) Another thing that was quite interesting was that Lijah let me try a little calamari (or octopus). It tasted like fish and was purple with tentacles.
After breakfast we boarded the bus and we drove through the Andes making a few stops along the way. We took pictures and stopped at the marketplace in a small village. The market was filled with people in colorful costumes who were there for a weaving contest. I bought a woven camera strap and an alpaca breeder mask. The mask is part of a costume that people wear in the dance to get the season off to a good start. Most of the masks are white with a cross and a stripe on the forehead. But there are many different types of these masks. They have cool colors, horns, beards, and faces. If you look at one from far away they look like a ski mask or socks with many colors.
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