I took another bite of the meat. It was tender, and was easy to cut and chew. I looked at the remaining meat on my plate. It was round and flat. It was long and skinny. I was suddenly suspicious. I flipped it over, saw the tiny bumps, and my suspicions were confirmed – the meat was tongue.
That’s not the only crazy food we had in Ollantaytambo. On our first day, we had an assortment of vegetables. I found one vegetable that felt fatty. It tasted like meat. Later, after we were done eating, my parents surprised me. They told me the truth: that the tasty vegetable wasn’t a vegetable at all. It was cow stomach.
We entered the ruins. We got a guide for an hour. She told us many different things. For example, at the Princess Baths, she explained to us that once a year, every June 21, the sun would rise up over the the mountain and a single dot of sunlight would appear where water trickled in from a hole in the wall. Another fact was that for palaces and other important buildings, they would use giant stones made of granite. They would be cut with high precision, niches and notches connecting, and stuck together like LEGOs, no mortar needed. Also, the windows and doors were shaped like trapezoids. In an earthquake, the building would shake, but remain standing. We loved our tour. It was amazing.
The family we stayed with was amazing, too. They were so nice. They greeted us like family. I played with their niece a lot, and it was simply amazing.
We also loved the old town. It was full of beautiful Spanish colonial and original Inca architecture. Beautiful. Beautifully mysterious.
Round the World Kid 