JD is Blessed by a Sacred Llama

This was their first and last day as a full group, and G adventures planned a fun-filled adventure from Cuzco to Ollantaytambo. 

Where they stayed: Inka paradise, a hostel in the tiny town of Ollantaytambo with a lovely courtyard and view of the mountains.  The hostel at first appeared “hotel quality”, until they realized it offered hot/cold showers, limited internet, massive (potentially poisonous) spiders, and big poufy blankets stolen from Ikea (which still had the security tags on them)!  Fortunately, the travellors have short-term memories and (almost) all their complaints were washed away by the complimentary custom cooked eggs served by hostel staff members at breakfast the next morning.

What they ate and drank: A delicious multi-course meal at an organic restaurant set in the Andean countryside, starting with assorted bread, roasted potatoes, a corn bread, a lovely bean soup, a salad (that Britt did resist – much to her sadness), a stuffed pepper, and big plates of multicoloured quinoa and roasted chicken.  For dessert they had a potato pudding juice thing, which tastes just about as gross as it sounds, and a passion fruit jello, which tastes just about as sour as it sounds.  Or if you’re one of their G Adventure group members, maybe you mixed both together – grossour.  At their last dinner as a group together, Lara and Alice steered clear of meat and had a vegetarian pasta at an Peruvian Italian restaurant.

What they did: Saw all the things! – starting with a large whitewashed Jesus statue and a fantastic lookout point over Cuzco.  From there, the group travelled up winding Andean roads, picking up an adorable woman on the way.  They thought they were picking up a hitchhiker (because their cab driver actually picked up a hitchhiker en route to their hotel the day before, so it wouldn’t have been that farfetched), but it turned out to be a 27 year old 4 ft 10 weaving woman from the co-op they were driving to.  Ashley can tell you her height because she could see the top of her head – this is rare.  She accompanied the group to a women’s weaving co-op where Alice learned how to weave a blanket, demonstrating to the group her superior skills at all the things.  Truthfully, they’ve never seen Alice look so nervous, as she tried not to mess up 6 hours worth of work. In exchange for the lesson, she spent her life savings on alpaca hats, gloves, and scarves.  At the weaving co-op they also saw a wool dying demonstration, learned about the different types of wool, and learned how to fend off stealth llama attacks.  One of the alpacas got upset at JD for not feeding him, and decided to spit on him, prompting a traditional root grass laundry session and resulting in JD’s only souvenir from the village. Okay, that’s not entirely true, he also bought a tea cozy.

From the weaving co-op the group travelled to Pisaq, their first ruin (err archaeological site) set in the Sacred Valley on the Urumbamba River. Ashley was still feeling altitude sickness and didn’t climb to the top, choosing to look tranquilly over some Incan burial grounds, while Alice climbed to the top twice after having to descend and find her phone, which she left on the grass atop an Incan terrace.  After the aforementioned delicious lunch, they had a siesta in the van – one Gravol was enough to knock Jenna right out for the bumpy bus ride – while Alice played what she thought was a points based name all the animals game with JD and Britt which ended up just being her calling out, “cow”, “cow”, “donkey”, “pig!” for five minutes straight while JD and Britt dozed. She obviously won that game.

Their next ruin was Ollantaytambo, where they probably insulted all the Incan Gods by climbing onto the ruins – though it did make for super cute photos.  Sidenote: Alice personally hoisted Lara, Jenna, Britt, and Ash into those holes for the photo op!  You’d never know from the photos that en route to the ruin Ashley fell just a few minutes prior smashing both her knees into a sewer grate.  Luckily there was no photo evidence of this, although JD and Britt can tell you that their automatic reaction to seeing someone fall in front of them was “Must be Ashley”.  After getting back to their hostel, they received a panicked email from their travel agent in Toronto informing them that due to yet another flight delay by Avianca, they would have to stay in El Salvador againon their way back home in a few days.  There’s nothing really to say about this other than chaos ensued – emails to the Boudreau parents, Alex, and Rachel the travel agent flew at a slow, slow, poorly connected internet speed.

Lessons learned: NEVER JOKE ABOUT YOUR STAY IN EL SALVADOR UNTIL YOU’RE HOME…OR EVER!

Biggest surprise: Being spit on by a sacred llama is not as cool as it sounds – while you may think sacred llamas spit gold flakes and glitter, they actually spit brown, goopy… spit. 

Some questions, for the Cuzco Stay and the Incan Trail:

Will Britt, Ashley and JD stay busy during their three days alone?  What will they do to entertain themselves? Will they be lonely?

Will Lara, Jenna, and Alice survive the Incan trail? Will Alice arrive riding Julia the llama?

Stay tuned!