Rolling Pugs, Spanish Game of Thrones, and the Dog That Followed Us for Four Hours: A Reflection on Ollantaytambo

I was pretty taken aback when I saw how small Ollantaytambo was compared to Cuzco—I don't really know what I was expecting, but I think as someone from a large city, I tend to imagine most other places as large cities. However, Ollantaytambo was much smaller than this, and the center of the town was a single plaza circled by restaurants, bars, and hotels/hostels. Ollantaytambo was still pretty tourist-heavy, which makes sense given that it's on the way to Machu Picchu, but didn't have the same tacky tourist trap vibe that Aguas Calientes did. We happened to be in Ollantaytambo on the day of the Game of Thrones series premiere, so many members of our group settled in to watch it. However, a few fellow non-Game of Thrones-watchers and I set out to explore what Ollantaytambo had to offer at around 7 p.m. Little did we know that this would turn into a four-hour adventure that would leave me fascinated and happily surprised by what Ollantaytambo had to offer.

We began the night by heading to dinner at a restaurant that had been highly-rated on TripAdvisor: Blue Magic. Something I noticed about most restaurants in Ollantaytambo is that many of them have all-day happy hours. I don't know if this was exclusive to the one day we were there—though I don't think so given that it was a Sunday night—or if this is a daily occurrence and consequently a significant difference from restaurants in Cuzco. This can be attributed to a variety of factors: it might be a means to lure in tourists; alternatively the quality of the products in Ollantaytambo might simply be lower than that of those in Cuzco because people come there for the ruins, not the restaurants, and they can, therefore, afford to skimp on quality for a cheaper price. No matter what the reason may be, I thought this distinction was interesting. Unfortunately, despite the low prices, the drinks in Ollantaytambo—from lemonade to pisco sours—may have been slightly more affordable but tasted significantly worse than the ones I had in Cuzco to the point where I couldn't finish my drink. For reference, I really hate wasting money, so if I don't finish something, that means that it really wasn't drinkable. Perhaps another potential reason for this difference is that there's less competition between businesses in Ollantaytambo simply because there are fewer businesses; however, a later encounter during this eventful night causes me to question this theory. Another difference I noticed at this restaurant was that the waitress spoke essentially no English, which I didn't mind at all because it really pushed the group's Spanish skills as we tried to come up with the correct word for "sausage" on pizza—chorizo, not salchicha. Nevertheless, this was definitely different from Cuzco where servers often begin by speaking English when they hear you're speaking it or switch to English in order to clarify something that they think you may not understand. It's a pretty nice crutch to fall back on at times, but I definitely learned a few things by not having that crutch. Despite the mediocre drinks, the food at Blue Magic was great—they also had a full vegetarian menu, which I always really appreciate, so I ordered sauteed vegetables with rice and potatoes. There was clearly a lot of work put into the presentation of the dish, which I thought was interesting given how disappointed I was by my drink at the time, and there were little designs drawn around the rim of the plate in a variety of sauces. The potatoes for this dish were fries, which was unexpected because every time I've gotten potatoes in Cuzco they've been thin chips. I don't know if this difference is culturally significant, but it was definitely interesting—and delicious. We left Blue Magic satisfied with our meal and ready to explore what else Ollantaytambo had to offer.

The group set out to find a place to sit and talk—this brought us to a dark cobblestone alley where we decided against going to our first destination of choice because it was filled only with Peruvian men yelling at each other loudly. This was interesting because the majority of other places—with a few exceptions—that we've visited are either overrun with tourists or at least have a few, and I didn't realize the sense of comfort that provided until that moment when we all decided to search for another place. On our way out of the alley, we witnessed perhaps the most interesting scuffle between street dogs: three dogs began barking at each other, and before we knew it, a pug literally rolled down the alley and a small black dog zoomed by me so fast that I had to jump out of the way because I really thought it would run me down. Slightly confused by what we'd just witnessed, we walked out of the alley and saw the same small black dog perched where the alley opened up to the street. Little did we know that little black dog would follow us around for the rest of the night—but more on that later. I am going somewhere with all of this talk about the dogs: for some reason, the dogs in Ollantaytambo seemed to be more open to human interaction than the ones in Cuzco, and I think it might be because, from the human-dog interactions I saw, people in Ollantaytambo treat dogs, even street dogs, a bit better than individuals in Cuzco. For instance, when the dog followed us into two different cafés later on in the night, the servers would coax him out with bread or cooing rather than kicking him like I've seen rather often in Cuzco. Of course, these observations were rather limited—plus, maybe the dog was just treated that way so as not to upset tourists and lose business—so I don't know if I can make a sweeping generalization about it, but this could be one reason that the dogs in Ollantaytambo were more friendly. Another is that Ollantaytambo is more of a tourist town, so maybe it's the frequent interaction with tourists that makes the dogs friendlier. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the company of the furry friend that followed us around for the rest of the night—though I don't think anybody in the group enjoyed how badly he smelled.

After our alley experience, we settled on heading to an English Pub—little did we know that it was broadcasting the series finale of Game of Thrones and was consequently the worst place to talk because we would get dirty looks every time we made a sound. We ordered and sat down anyway because we had already made the trek there—the little black dog from the alley sat under our table. The show began, and it was in Spanish—most everybody in the room looked shocked and confused which was interesting because ... this is Peru after all—a mainly Spanish-speaking country. This was the first time where the expectation that English be spoken in a non-English speaking country was so blatant, and though I understand the tourist desire to watch Game of Thrones in English, it also made me a bit uncomfortable. Within a few minutes, customer requests prompted one of the employees to switch the show to English—which was met with loud applause. This was our cue to leave our mediocre sweet potato fries—which in this case were chip-shaped, kind of mushy, bland, and definitely overpriced—and even worse drinks behind in order to search for another place where we could actually sit and talk.

The little black dog followed us to a street near our hostel where three very similar restaurants stood. One employee from each restaurant stood outside, advertising why we should choose their restaurant over the other two. We finally settled on the one in the middle that seemed to have the most people and headed upstairs. The space was larger than I expected and slightly chilly because of a door that opened up to a balcony area. In the middle of the table sat a little glass container with quinoa with a wooden block that contained the WiFi password—the whole quinoa thing has been a common trend; I know quinoa is considered a Peruvian staple, but I wonder why quinoa is emphasized so much more than the other staples. Selecting this restaurant ended up being a great choice, and we sat here talking and practicing our Spanish for a few hours. This server was also a bit more involved than many of the ones in Cuzco, probably because the place wasn't as busy, but I enjoyed having a personable rather than a disconnected interaction. We also interacted with a few of the other people that came to sit in the upstairs area over the course of the night—mostly in an attempt to get the dog out from beneath our respective tables. Nevertheless, I felt a sense of community there that night that I think is often hard to feel in a bigger city like Cuzco.

I headed back to the hotel that night feeling very reflective—I think this series of experiences made me appreciate Ollantaytambo more than I would have otherwise. There was just something about the combination of the quirkiness, feeling of community despite the touristy nature, and cultural insights I discovered there that left me feeling a bit sad when we had to leave the next afternoon.