Working and Living in Ollantaytambo

Just like home I get up around 6 a.m., have a quick breakfast and I´m off to work. Doing photography as a job has its drawbacks. I have to take pictures under difficult lighting conditions and there is the constant pressure to take interesting shots of difficult subjects. I am almost tired of taking photos now. However, I have a good assignment - photos of volunteers at their worksites and homestays. Two new photo volunteers have been assigned to walk the trails in the surrounding mountains and take nature shots...two activities that I deplore, so I am lucky. Truthfully, I enjoy going to the schools and health clinics and talking with the staff at both. It´s been very interesting and I have learned a lot about like in the Andes...a hard life to be sure.

Last weekend Mariana and I went to Machu Pichu. We took the early morning train at 5:00, so we got there early before the great rush of tourists arrived. It is truly a magnificent site, much deserving of it´s recent inclusion in the Seven Wonders of the World. The entire city was made of rock and the quaries were thousands of feet below the city. I read that at one point, a river obstructed the worker´s path and so they diverted the river around the rocks that they had collected at the bank to avoid having to carry the rocks through water. The bus ride up the Machi Pichu was terrifying (gravel roads, no side rails, and high, high, high), but the views of the mountains were possibly the most spectacular that I have ever seen.

Ollantaytambo is also a rock city, thousands of years old. However, because the train to Machu Pichu stops here, it is overun by tourism. The railroad is privately owned I hear and they don´t funnel any money into Ollanta for infrastructure development, so it´s all overwhelming for everyone. Many of the people who now live in the city are former peasants who sold their land and now sell crafts in town. It seems at times like a huge craft market. There are groups in town who are working on sustainable tourism projects, but I´m not sure how successful they will be given the big money to be made here by the train and bus companies. I enjoy walking around in the early morning before the crafts shops open and the giant tour buses arrive.

Well, I´m off to work at the elementary school in town. More on all that and my host family later.