Half our tour group have decided to walk the Inca trail. 4 days , 3 nights ending at Machu Picchu. It’s pretty tough walking at altitude, at times over 4000m while porters will carry your 5kg bag and you only need your daypack. And while it’s highly organised, wasn’t really going to be part of this trip.

So, while the others got ready to go on the trail I decided to take a relatively short hike up to see some Inca ruins in Ollantaytambo , the town we were staying and to head up to the ruins. I went with a couple of others as David is struggling with the altitude.

Started well. Lamas in the garden as we went to breakfast and the clouds had cleared so we could see the glaciers. Great signs.

The Inca empire hit its peak in the 15th century, ollantaytambo was a central town for an Incan emperor who made the town a stronghold against the Spanish invaders. But in the meantime they created some pretty impressive bits of architecture…. The sun temple being one of them. It’s stunning, and mind boggling as to how these were constructed, the engineering involved, the precision, and yet archeologists cannot explain how they are where they are, no tools have been found. Yet they are still here. And they are indeed incredible! They have established connections to the sun, with certain shadows happening on Solstice days. And the construction was added to in the defence against the Spanish invaders. So there is construction on construction.

It was pretty tough we started at normal pace but very quickly ran out of breath. So we had to slow down , right down. Just could not get enough air in. But we got there.

We decided to continue up and go to the peak to see the top Inca Watana, a place of ritual, but also apparently a place of potential punishment or sacrifice. Magnificent views.

With the hikers dispatched. The rest of us were on a bus back to Cusco with the obligatory stops on the way.

Then we stopped at a sanctuary for Condor rehabilitation. Another unexpected highlight.. we had first seen this on the show LongvWat to with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman. It’s a community based rehab centre looking like it’s doing its best on a shoestring with animals no one else will take in.