SkyLodge (Days 4-5)

Day 4 - Today is SkyLodge day!  The day I have been waiting for for years.  But first, we had about 8 hours to kill.  After breakfast at the hotel, we headed to Incan grain storage ruins built into the side of the cliff facing the Ollantaytambo ruins.  I cannot explain why, but I was a bit obsessed with hiking to the storage bins when I saw them yesterday.  Apparently, they were on the opposite side of the valley to take advantage of the shade and wind.  The Incans figured out how to build a cooling system using wind to keep the grain fresh.

Prepping for the hike - filtering water

Day llamas posing for a pic

The ruins were walkable, and we could see them, so we basically just aimed for them.  We became a little bit lost in the tiny streets that extend from the main square, but that made the walk even better.  All the narrow streets have canals running through them and the streets are lined with homes, hotels, and shops with little foot bridges over the canals into each respective doorway.  

Random photo showing how small a lot of the doors are - the step down is only a few inches.

Common canal in streets

Canal with footbridges to doorways

We learned yesterday that Ollantaytambo is a “living Incan village” because many of the current buildings are built on original Incan foundations.  Luis told us that about 60% of the buildings we see are original.  Looking up and down the narrow streets, you can see the bottom half of many of the buildings are stone, and I am guessing that is the original stuff.

It took a minute for us to find the entrance to the storage bin site, called Pinkuylluna, as it was a bit non-descript.  

We walked right by this entrance

We were the only ones on the trail, and it took about 30 minutes to get up there.  The storage bins are huge.  There are three “buildings” and each one has about 6-8 windows facing forward.  They are perfectly aligned with space between each building.  Each building has a “shelf” near the floor with holes in it – we are told that is how they circulated air to keep everything fresh.  

Hiking to the storage bins

Almost there!

Reverse view of Ollantaytambo & Ruins

Me in a bin window.  Bindow?

Inside the bin - cooling shelf to the left

The trail also led us to the ruins of other buildings.  We have no idea what they were, but maybe it was a village for people who tended to the grains. 

Messin' around

Village?  Houses?  

Hiking around here is interesting – while on a hiking path, there are no guard rails, no signs posted, no guards – every step is potentially falling off a cliff.  So exciting.

Typical path/stairs

We hiked back down and headed to the main square for coffee, and we were joined by one of the MANY furry friends in the area.  This guy snuggled at my feet the whole time.  

Back to the hotel to shower (finally) and get packed for the SkyLodge, then back to the square for lunch, where Damon accosted a group of motorcycling Brazilians dining next to us.  They were on a 23-day South American tour.  Motorcycle riders are like an exclusive club, and they all share pictures and talk about their rides and their bikes.  Damon was in Heaven.  We ended up back at the hotel to wait for our pick up at 3:30.  Side note – we were warned not to drink any water, which includes accidentally getting it in your mouth while showering.  I never realized that I shower with my mouth open until it was full and I started frantically spitting it all out. 

SkyLodge – why am I so excited about this experience???  SkyLodge is, quite simply, 4 glass pods suspended 1,200 feet over the Sacred Valley, attached to the side of a cliff, accessible by via ferrata.  Via ferrata is basically climbing up a rebar ladder that has been drilled into the side of the cliff.  The experience is climbing up to the pods, having dinner, sleeping in the pods, having breakfast, and ziplining down in the morning.  The pods consist of 3 sleeping pods that can sleep up to 4 per pod and 1 dining pod. 

First look at SkyLodge driving in

View straight up from basecamp

Video:  First reaction at seeing SkyLodge

We arrived at “basecamp” and met the 4 other guests in our group.  We received our climbing equipment (helmet, gloves, harnesses) and basic instruction with safety briefing, and off we went.  

Damon ready to go

Donna ready to go

We had to carry up whatever we wanted with us in backpacks, including water, toiletries, and warm clothes.  The climb was estimated to take about an hour and a half.  We started the climb at 4:50pm.  The sun sets at 5:30pm.  Do the math.

The climb itself was much easier than I expected – maybe it was the adrenaline.  You do not really have the opportunity to look down as you are in a constant motion of climb climb, move your safety clips from one section to the next, climb climb, repeat, always facing the mountain – you are only focused on where your hands and feet are going next.   The rebar steps are not spaced equally – sometimes it is a big step, sometimes a small step, sometimes a sideways step, sometimes there is no step, and it is just a notch in the cliff face.  But it was pretty much straight up.  Every now and then you could sort of lean against the cliff with feet on solid ground, but for the most part, it was hanging onto rebar on the side of a cliff.  Thankfully, neither of us have any fear of heights because when we had a minute to just look out into the valley, well, you do realize that you are 1000 feet up standing on a finger-sized piece of rebar.  But strangely, and maybe it is because we are double clipped in, neither of us felt any fear of falling.  

Lots of climbing pictures in no particular order...

Pods straight up

Happy Damon

Happy Donna

Just getting started

Damon and my safety cables

Taking a quick rest

Another rest - big ledge

Another ledge

Video:  How to climb using double clips, but not really like a pro:

About two thirds of the way up, there was a cable bridge that we had to cross.  It can be hard to tell from the pictures, but it was nearing 5:30pm and the sun was starting to set.  The cable bridge was about 30 feet across.  You stand on a double cable and hold a single cable.  There is absolutely nothing below you but air.  You sidestep from one side to the other to get across.  Again, no fear of heights – it was totally cool and not scary.

Video:  Damon crossing cable bridge

Video  Donna crossing cable bridge

Once across, we had about 30 more minutes of climbing and we lost light quickly.  

Losing Light, still climbing

Amazing sunset - still climbing!

Clipped in - dark climbing

I spent the last 20-minutes or so with my headlamp on.  Yes, we are standing on rebar, clipped to a cable, 1,000+ feet in the air, in the pitch black, trying to make our way to a glass pod suspended by cables to the side of a cliff using head lamps with the wind kicking up big time.  And we paid to be here!  We finally made it into the dining pod at about 6:15pm – all six of us ecstatically happy and pleased with ourselves.

Made it!  Sun is down; dining pod behind us.

The dining pod is an amazingly robust kitchen.  One entire side of the pod is just exposed cliff face, and they have stoves and all the cooking equipment on that side.  

Dining pod - cooking side

Our climbing crew

They bring all the food up fresh every day.  We had an amazing dinner of pumpkin soup, salad, chicken stuffed with spinach, mashed potatoes, and vegetables, followed by baked apples on granola drizzled with chocolate.  I don’t eat this well at home!  For dinner, we could take off our helmets, but we did eat with our harnesses on because to get to our sleeping pods, we had to do more climbing.  In the dark.

For some idiotic reason, maybe my desire to get to a toilet after 4 hours, I went first leaving the dinner pod to get to our sleeping pod (the top one, supposedly inhabited by ghosts, and the most difficult one to get to).  It was me, then Damon, then one of our guides.  Pitch black, headlamp, no one to follow, had to figure out how to step my way over when I could only see a few rungs ahead.  The wind was howling and blowing what felt like 100mph and we are now a little bit fatigued.  We carefully made our way over to the pod (no pictures, too dangerous).  In one section of the via ferrata, we had to get over a rock that jutted out, meaning most of the weight was on your hands, not your feet – that was maybe the scariest part of the entire day.  Finally got to our pod, opened the hatch on top, and dropped into our sleeping quarters.

The pods are a decent size and have 3 sections.  The front section is the size of a king-sized bed.  The middle section has 2 twin beds and a small walkway.  The back of the pod is the bathroom.  Yes, a fully functioning bathroom.  The million-dollar question – how does the bathroom work???  There is a sink that drains down the mountain.  We have a fancy water jug with a spigot, so it works just like a sink.  The boy toilet is a bowl attached to a tube that drains into the mountain, so Damon could just go right down there.  The girl toilet is an actual toilet with a toilet seat and a bowl that you go into.  You then empty the bowl into the boy tube.  When using the bowl or the tube, you spray with a floral antiseptic spray after each use.  Now for the, um, other stuff.  Under the toilet seat, there is a supply of large garbage bags that had some type of powder in them.  Lift the toilet seat, remove the bowl, put the garbage bag over the whole “frame”, lower the seat, “go” in the bag, remove all air from the bag, tightly knot the bag, and drop down a second chute under the toilet.  The entire thing is genius.  The most important thing of the entire going to the bathroom process was making sure the curtains were closed as our toilet looked directly onto our guides in the dining pod.

Video:  Tour of pod (narrated by Damon)

View from our toilet - curtains open

We got ready for bed and opted to not go out on the roof to star gaze.  Luckily one of the other groups shared some amazing night sky pictures with us.  

Milky way, stars, mountains

Looking up at our pod

It was cold, we were exhausted, and the wind was whipping down the valley like crazy.  We got into the super comfy bed with a thick down comforter and went to sleep.  Well, Damon went to sleep.  I spent a solid 3-4 hours freaking out at how loud the wind was howling – it sounded like a freight train and did not let up at all until after midnight.  It was not that I was afraid the pod was going to fall, it was just the loudest never-ending howling wind I’ve ever heard, and my mind got the better of my brain.  I slept from about 1:30 until 6:30, so not too bad.  Oh, another random fact – despite how high up we were, we could hear dogs barking from below.

Day 5 - SkyLodge Part 2

Breakfast was called for 7am and it was up to us to radio our guides to let them know whether we wanted to brave the climb back to them, or if they had to come pick us up.  Of course, we braved it – if we could traverse the mountain in the dark, this would be a cake walk.  We took a bunch of pictures and videos of our pod and surrounding area and climbed to breakfast. 

Morning View

Morning View 2

Damon making his way to breakfast - imagine this in the dark

Top of the pod - must be clipped in at all times

Video:  How to exist the pod through the hatch

Breakfast was an enormous fruit bowl with apples, grapes, kiwi and banana, granola, and for those who wanted it, bread, eggs, and more.  After breakfast, we all returned to our pods so the photographer could give each pod their own photo shoot.  I realized Damon and I are not destined to be Instagram models because we have absolutely no idea how to pose and not look ridiculous.

Instagram Models

Not Instagram Models

Instagram Models

Everyone met up at our pod at 9am and we hiked a short distance to our first zip line.  The zip lines were fun – six in total, the longest being over 2,000 feet.  

Damon starting the 2000 ft zip

Coming in hot... backwards...

By number four, I could stop yelling “coming in hot” as I flew into the platforms, and eventually mastered the graceful landing.  Sadly, by 10:30, our adventure was over.  We took a few group photos, said goodbye, and got a ride back to the hotel – we ended up keeping our same hotel so we could leave all our stuff without worrying. 

Group photo

We hung at the hotel for a bit and then hiked back into town for lunch in the square and then opted to try for a walk-in massage as we had passed a sign several times.  We walked into a weird courtyard and up some stairs into the massage place.  We yelled hello but no one answered so we went back downstairs and asked someone at the restaurant below if they knew where the massage people were.  She tells us to wait and runs across the square to find a lady who comes running back and excitedly brings us back upstairs to pick out what we want.  There is a single room with about 6 massage tables separated (sort of) by hanging sheets.  She told us to strip down to our underwear and lay down while she ran to get another lady.  I asked for a blanket to cover up, which she brought, which didn’t really matter since the sheets barely closed.  Damon and I were in the same section. 

I have no idea what was going on at Damon’s massage, even though he was only 2 feet from me, because they had taken a thin little Peruvian woven blanket and wrapped it around my face and head.  So, it was like I was being massage kidnapped because I couldn’t see anything, and the blanket was also covering my mouth.  Luckily, it was thin, so breathing was not really an issue.  The two ladies kept whispering in Spanish and I tried without luck to decipher what they were saying.  The massage was pretty good, although there was an extensive amount of oil used.  There was some Eucalyptus steam blown in my face at some point, and there were also hot stones.  Again, no clue who was doing what or who was in the room because my whole face was covered.  All for a bargain price of $30!  When we were paying, I saw a handwritten sign that let customers know that they will not accept extra money to pay for sex.  So that happened.

Back to the hotel to shower off the gallon of massage oil, and then we met up with our tour operator for a briefing prior to our 2-day Inca Trail & Machu Picchu hike, which starts tomorrow.  Another delicious dinner in the main square and then back to our room to pack up for our next adventure.  All-in-all, Ollantaytambo is an awesome place to visit with lots to do, a super cute town, great restaurants, and we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here.

Goodbye Ollantaytambo!