It was with some excitement that we landed in Peru on Wednesday November 8th, 216 days after leaving Wellington on our big adventure. Travelling to South America has been a dream of Jolanda’s for a long time and so it was natural that this massive continent would figure in our itinerary at some stage.

It has to be said that Lima, our first stop, was a little bit of an anticlimax. We knew from our research that this would not be one of the world’s most beautiful cities but we were unprepared for the sprawl of smog-drenched dreariness that is Lima. Our one bright spot was somewhat of a surprise for us having discovered that New Zealand was playing Peru in a world cup qualifying football match on our second night.

Man do those Peruvians love their football. Just about everyone in the city centre was sporting Peruvian colours, screens were set up in Kennedy Park (worth a visit by the way to see the 100 plus homeless cats protected by the local council), and the bars were heaving. We were interviewed by a local TV channel while walking towards a lively looking place for a beer – I think they were amazed to find out we were Kiwis. Nil all was the result by the way. The second leg is being played in Lima in a couple of day’s time which will be an absolute hum-dinger . . .

The journey from Lima to Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley was torturous, not through any fault of the transport logistics but when you have a stomach upset I wouldn’t recommend a cab ride through smoggy Lima, being bounced around in the plane over the Andes to Cusco and then another 90 minutes of taxi driving on pot holed Peruvian roads to anyone. Jolanda wasn’t feeling a hundred-per cent either and so we were a couple of sick and grumpy so-and-sos when we finally checked in to our little hotel in Ollantaytambo

We felt marginally improved the next day but by the day after we were definitely back on our feet and ready to do justice to this little town set on the Urubamba River amid snow capped mountains (well they are snow capped in the winter). And what a majestic, beautiful and cosy place it is. The place is dominated by two sets of impressive Inca ruins, one of which, the “Fortress”, we explored for an entire morning. The story goes that the Spanish conquistadores suffered one of their rare defeats here, and when you experience the fortress at first hand its not hard to see why. A series of massive terraces leads up the mountain with fortifications at the top, from which the Spanish apparently suffered a deluge of arrows when they tried to attack. As if that wasn’t enough, the Incas then flooded the valley by way of a pre-prepared trap from which the Spanish had to beat a hasty retreat.

The Incas should be admired not only for their building genius and their ability to flood valleys at will, but also for the way that they somehow transported so many massive masonry blocks up the steep mountain face. One wall of the temple of the sun still remains – six huge blocks, each weighing over fifty tonnes, and fitted together with not so much as a paper-thin crack. Fifty tonnes! My Toyota SUV weighs 1.5 tonnes (Ok I had to look that up) – so that’s the equivalent of dragging thirty-three of those beasts five hundred metres up a steep rocky hillside. Impressive . . .

Ollantaytambo is a cute little village, full of narrow cobbled windy streets and stone constructed buildings. On the one hand its very touristy, with buses and trains leaving for Machu Pichu in the morning and returning in the late afternoon, but between those times it’s a lot quieter and more mellow. Everyone sells the quintessential lama wool hats, ponchos and blankets but the stallholders aren’t pushy at all – leaving one blissfully free to browse at leisure. The fruit and vegetable market is more for the locals and is a photographer’s paradise.

Ollantaytambo definitely ranks among my most favourite places to visit. If you are visiting Peru, stop here for a while – you wont regret it . . .