After realizing that the train trip to Macchu Picchu would cost over $65 round trip from Cuzco, Jonathan and I opted for the cheaper option of catching the 2nd class backpacker train in Ollantaytambo (3hrs from Cuzco) for $44 round trip. Plus, we had read some cool descriptions about the ruins and surrounding valley in the area. Unfortunately there isn't a bus that goes all the way to Ollantaytambo. You have to take 2 different buses to get there from Cuzco. After about an hour, somewhere around Calca, the bus came to a stop and everyone started to get out. When we got out, we saw people rolling rocks and breaking glass on to the road to block passage. A young man named Walter from the same bus told us that local roads to the countryside were being blocked in protest of an upcoming free trade agreement between Peru and the United States. For reasons still not clear to us, farmers had picked July 4th for the protest (possibly because it was the day the agreement was signed or went into effect). After everything had been unloaded, the bus promptly returned to Cuzco and we were left in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting to Ollantaytambo. So we started to walk...with Walter. Turns out Walter was on his way home in Ollantaytambo from Cuzco, where he studies tourism. Over the course of 3 hours, Walter taught us words in Quechua, introduced us to Chicha (a local drink made out of fermented corn that either gives you energy or gets you drunk), and told us about how the Quechua consider the surrounding mountains to be gods.
My favorite part of the trip was walking through towns where tourist buses had been forced to stop and leave their khaki-clad passengers in streets littered with broken glass, tree trunk barriers, and burning tires.
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