The Town and Ruins of Ollantaytambo
After six days in Cusco, we finally exhausted what we could visit in a day trip, so we set out to the town of Ollantaytambo, situated between two steep mountains a bit further up the Sacred Valley, to use as a new base for our explorations. Ollantaytambo was, of course, a lot more than a base and also an interesting site in and of itself. Ollantaytambo was once an important city and fortress in the Inca empire, and very well fortified. It was, in fact, the only place where the Spanish lost a battle against the Inca, during the post-conquista rebellion of Manco Inca in 1537.
While the exact location of this battle within Ollantaytambo is unknown, it did provide a bit of fortune to those who visit the town today. The Inca defenders used prepared channels to flood the town during the fight, which brought with it loads of mud and silt which buried some of the upper-class sections of the city, which are just being excavated today. Additionally, the town itself managed to resist the imposition of Spanish culture fairly well, and it therefore maintains most of its precolumbian stone streets, buildings, and canals in various states of preservation.
On the mountain slopes to the west of the town lays Ollantaytambo's main attraction: the remains of the Temple of the Sun, or the city's citadel. The largish complex consists of a set of temples on the ridge of the slope, a series of decorative terraces and finally a storehouse. Viewed from the other side of the ravine, the group is supposed to resemble a sitting llama, with the temples forming its head, the terraces its body and the storehouse its tail. On the summer solstice, the first rays of the sun to break over the horizon hit the llama's eye, a square stone temple.
Just below this complex lay the upper-class regions of the city, which are currently just being excavated. So far, archaeologists have found a number of interesting baths, each dedicated to a different group of the nobility.
On the slopes to the east of the town are a series of store houses, built with rows of windows facing downslope. This construction is actually rather ingenious because they are built to capture the flow of air up the slope. This kept their internal temperature well below that of the ambient temperature of the valley and allowed food to be stored for longer periods, kind of like a big fridge.
That is about all that we have to say about Ollantaytambo itself; be sure to stay tuned for the next installment of our tour through the Sacred Valley!
August 30th, 2010 - 09:10
Who would flood their own city, refer to a SITTING llama, and let the windows of their storage rooms open for hot air? Up to now I thought them pretty clever… As you’re on to silly stories, tell us about the cows on the roofs? ( I think I first spotted them in Bolivia?)