“My throat hurts,” Erika said to me Saturday night while we were packing up Franz and Helga for our early morning flight to Cusco, Peru. Thus began nearly a month of Erika dealing with illness in one form or another, and of me exploring Peru on my own for a while.

Cusco

We landed in Cusco and had to argue with the taxi drivers over rates—amazingly, something we really hadn’t done until now.

“Oh, that’s for taxis outside the airport, but they’re not as safe,” the driver gravely told us, arguing for the much higher rate than we’d read of online, which he was quoting. Erika was pushing pretty hard for 20 soles, which was still a bit higher than we’d read about. When one of the drivers relented and offered 25, we said screw it and decided to be done with this.

He didn’t know how to get to the hostel we were staying at, so he had to call them to get directions. After he got off the phone, he passive-aggressively whined and complained that it wasn’t in the center of town, that it was a different fare to get there. Listen buddy, maybe you should have known where you were going first, kinda how we did some research to see how much you taxis should cost. Plus, our hostel was even closer to the airport than the center of town, so hush up.

The hostel greeted us with friendliness and English, and got us checked into our room. The room was… well it wasn’t our favorite, to put it lightly. It was an interior room, so we had no natural light. It was extremely cold. And, the water would come in fits and spurts, the faucets seeming to cough and wheeze the same way Erika was starting to as her cold set in.

We walked across town that evening, to check out the huge Plaza de Armas, and to get dinner at a place our hostel had recommended. It was good, if a little expensive. But the walk back to the hostel was the last time I got to spend exploring with Erika for a while.

The next day, she was fully wrecked by her cold. She slept most of the day, while I walked around the city on my own little photo safari. Unfortunately rain kept threatening, so it was fairly overcast all day, nevertheless it turned out to be a nice day for walking around, if not for photography.

When I got back, we went and picked up pizza from a nearby place, and brought it back to the hostel for dinner. Apparently, Erika’s next roadblock to exploration had been building during the day, because by the time it showed itself, we hadn’t had enough pizza for pizza to be at fault: diarrhea. For a while, the cold seemed to take a backseat, as GI issues jumped behind the wheel. We went back upstairs and relaxed in bed together, Erika resting and reading while I watched Star Wars on Netflix.

I’ll point this out here: we were booked for a 5 day, 4 night trekking excursion to Machu Picchu that departed the next morning. Unfortunately, we’d recognized weeks before that it just wasn’t going to happen, as the knee that Erika hurt in Torres del Paine wasn’t getting better. It meant we were out a decent chunk of money, and had to put together an alternate way to get up to Machu Picchu.

However, for this one moment, we were both thankful for that knee injury. If her knee was fine, but she still had this draining head cold, and the GI issues… well, we’d wake up tomorrow with a very, very difficult decision to make! As it turns out, her knee made the decision unpleasant but easy, but, whoooo… that could have sucked. A lot.

Ollantaytambo

Our plan the next day was a 2-hour minibus trip to an old Incan city called Ollantaytambo, which is a jumping off point for trains to Machu Picchu. Erika was, naturally, pretty worried about 2 hours in a minibus considering how her evening went. So she medicated to give herself the best chance of making it without incident, we said goodbye to Franz and Helga—whom we were leaving for a few days in the care of the hostel we’d stayed at—and walked over to the area of town to catch the minibuses.

When we got over there, one of the minibuses pegged us immediately as Ollantay-bound. We paid a pittance and jumped in. The bus was rapidly filled with other tourists, and in just a few minutes we were off. The ride was smooth and comfortable, and our driver careful.

We got into town and got off the bus, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket to check the time… only to be greeted with a very fucked up, very broken screen. What the hell happened?! I’d dropped my phone and cracked the screen like 6 months ago, but I’d had no issues other than cosmetic. Suddenly, nothing worked! The screen was barely legible, wouldn’t register most finger taps, and, most annoyingly, would register other phantom taps of its own volition. Opening apps, clicking through menus, liking and disliking music in my iTunes library. During the moment I had it unlocked to see if it still worked, it managed to open WhatsApp and call my mother. Of all things. I quickly dismissed the call, but moments later she naturally called back wondering what was going on, which I of course was unable to answer.

Three weeks until we got back to the USA… three weeks without the phone. Whew, that was going to be tough.

Incan Ruins

Erika wished me fun in exploring, and crashed immediately into bed when we got checked in. I grabbed my camera and headed out to spend the afternoon exploring Ollantaytambo. But first, it was mid-afternoon and we hadn’t had lunch yet, so I stopped and fueled up with the lunch of champions: a Snickers bar and a Coke. Let’s explore!

Ollantay is nestled in a little valley surrounded by large hills on all sides. It was an old Incan city, and still retains many of the original roadways, laid out in long, narrow straight lines, that basically feel like little alleys between the buildings. The surrounding hills are filled with Incan ruins as well. As you’re riding into town on the main road, you can see the prominent ruins scaling the large hill directly in front of you at the end of the road.

With Snickers and Coke in hand, my first destination was those ruins. The road continues through the town square and over a beautiful little bridge, and one block further is a large tourist market and the beginning of the ruins. I walked up, found the entrance, and found the price listing for admission: about $40 USD.

Forty!

We were about to go to Machu Picchu and spend a decent amount there, so I decided forty was too much. I turned and wandered into the market, browsing through all the fabric and bags that are beautiful, and available everywhere. I made my way to the back of the market, and to my left I looked and saw more ruins, through a doorway. I walked up to the doorway and peeked in: ruins, and people touring them. I looked left, and it seemed to connect to the main area you access through the entrance. I stepped inside a little.

Slowly, I made my way in bit by bit, looking as casual as possible, taking a couple pictures, realizing I’d wandered through the exit door, which for some reason was wide open and unattended. I wandered in further, until I was among people. I walked through the large grass field that was just inside. I found a staircase, and started making my way up the hillside.

I thoroughly enjoyed my free tour of the ruins.

Climbing the hill was fun, because every so often, I’d pass foreign tourists panting and wheezing and gasping for breath, and I’d just climb on past them. I felt their pain: god knows we had our rough days in Bolivia. But we’d been over 12000 feet for over two weeks now, plus a few days on the front end over 9000, and I was well acclimated to this altitude now.

It was a little late in the day, so unfortunately I couldn’t quite explore the entire ruins. However the sunset from the top was glorious, and the views over Ollantaytambo on one side, and the spectacular Sacred Valley on the other, were more than worth the price of admission.

Which, I guess was zero. But you know what I mean.

I tried to unlock my broken phone and take a selfie, but all my phone wanted to do, apparently, was open up Yelp and start searching for cafes. Sorry phone, I don’t think Yelp is available in Ollantaytambo.

Fortunately, after I made my way along the hillside to the other end of the ruins, a young man asked if I could take a few pictures of him, and then he returned the favor. He was from Mexico, and we talked for a bit about Mexico—as that’s the next country we’re off to—and the US. He was pretty awestruck by the vistas and the ruins, and for good reason.

I got back to the hotel, and told Erika about my accidental adventure, showing her all the pictures. She was happy to live it vicariously through me, as she was pretty sure her knee wouldn’t allow her to clamber up and down the Ollantay hillsides, and I’d agree. Save it for Machu Picchu, we both agreed.

She managed to get up and out for dinner though, which we had at an English-style pub around the corner. Afterwards, we walked through the narrow Incan streets some, and I could tell that, fortunately, my solo Peru trip was coming to an end. Erika had that spark of excitement to explore and see again, hidden somewhat behind grogginess and spaciness. I smiled, and couldn’t wait to have my partner back, to share all of this with.

What’s Next?

Machu Picchu! After that night in Ollantaytambo, we would head up to Aguas Calientes for a night and prepare to head up to the citadel. Come back next time to read about our trip to that Incan wonder!