Day Twelve - June 21st, 2009 - Pisac/Ollantaytambo

We wake up early enough to catch the set up of the Pisac market.  This market is largely local, with vendors selling food and housewares as well as items for the tourists.  We walk around and check out the efficiency with which they set up the market.  

After breakfast we grab a taxi up the mountain

to the trailhead to the Pisac ruins.  From here you hike downward through 4 magnificent ruins, with the option of looping back to the road and your waiting taxi, or hiking all the way down to town.  

We take about an hour and a half exploring the ruins, and Terry and Mom head back to the Taxi, with Allison & myself hiking down to town.

Ends up taking about an hour and a half.  Of course when 

we arrive in town, the market is in full swing, and it is enormous.  It spills out of the square and down many side streets.  We wander and shop a bit, eventually running into Terry and Mom.  We walk around some more, have lunch, chill for awhile, then catch a cab to our next destination - Ollantaytambo. 

On the way to Ollantaytambo, we pass through the town of Urubamba, where there is a Festival happening.  A banner stretched over the road reads "Festival Gastronomico Del Cuy", which means "Gourmet Guinea Pig Festival".  We check into our hostel in Ollantaytambo and grab an excellent dinner at a very nice place beside the river.  I have a Coca beer, which is exactly as it sounds, a beer brewed with coca.  It's ok.