Ollantaytambo is the last town in the Sacred Valley before the Río Urubamba plunges through steep gorges toward Machu Picchu. It is the best preserved Inca village in Peru, with its narrow alleys, street water canals, and trapezoidal doorways.

The Inca temple and fortress above town is second in beauty only to Machu Picchu. In the terraced fields entering town, men still use foot plows, or chaquitacllas, to till fields and plant potatoes. There are endless things to explore in and around Ollantaytambo, which is framed by the snowcapped Verónica Mountain and surrounded on all sides by Inca ruins, highways, and terraces.

Whisking through Ollantaytambo, as most travelers do, is a great shame. Stay and get to know the place.

Ollantaytambo is also in the throes of a tremendous struggle to save its way of life against the mass forces of tourism and development. Trinket sellers have crowded the areas in front of the Inca temple and the train station. Nondescript pizzerias are creeping onto the main square, which is continually shaken by the passing of massive trucks bound for the Camisea pipeline in the jungle around Quillabamba. One solution to these problems, as resident Wendy Weeks suggests, is to move the train station outside of town and have visitors enter as the Incas did—through the main gate and on foot.

The town’s saving grace, and what should carry it through its present crisis, is the tremendous sense of community that is palpable to anyone who pauses here. A cadre of researchers, led by English archaeologist Anne Kendall, have spent considerable time researching Inca farming technology and have restored hundreds of farming terraces and aqueducts. A new museum, founded by Kendall and directed by Joaquín Randall, has blossomed into a showcase of local life and includes a ceramics workshop and a program to recover lost weaving techniques.

Getting There

To get to Ollantaytambo from Cusco, take the bus from the first block of Grau near the bridge (US$1.50, 90 minutes) to Urubamba and then hop another combi for the 20-minute, US$1 ride to Ollantaytambo. The station where you catch the train to Aguas Calientes is a 10- or 15-minute walk from the main square along the Río Patacancha.

From Ollantaytambo, a variety of PeruRail Backpacker (US$53 round-trip only) and Vistadome (US$71.50 round-trip, US$43 one-way) trains either leave from here or stop here on the way from Cusco between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Your best option for a full day at Machu Picchu is the 7:05 a.m. train run by Machu Picchu Train (www.machupicchutrain.com).