Ollyantaytamborracho

During our night at Ollantaytambo, a few of us decided to go out for drinks while the rest of the group was watching the finale of Game of Thrones. We went out to eat at a restaurant and ordered Pisco Sours with our meals. However, there was a whole lot more Pisco than there was sour; everyone’s drinks were so strong. We paid the check, and as we walked out of the restaurant, a little black dog crawled out underneath the table where it had been sitting. I bent down to pet him but in doing so, caught a whiff of what this cute little dog smelt like. Now, feel like I have smelt my fair share of bad-smelling dogs, but this little fluffer was an expectation—his smell was completely unbearable. We turned away, quickly walked over to the main square, and decided to go into an English pub. We ordered our drinks, sat down, and began to talk. All of the sudden, there emerged a moldy-garbage-like smell. Our noses led us to the source of the smell...the same small black dog from the first restaurant; he and his horrible stench had followed us all the way to our table at the second bar. We yelled and nudged and offered food, but the dog would not budge from his spot under our table. Finally, we called a waiter over; he pulled the dog out from under the table and ushered him outside. Shortly after, he brought over our drinks. I took a sip and almost spit it right back up, my Chilcano tasted as if was just a glass of alcohol. I looked around and my friends all seemed to be having the same experiences with their drinks. We were confused and discussing how both places had made such strong drinks when all of the lights in the bar turned off and the room fell silent. It turns out the bar we had chosen was airing the season finale of GOT on their T.V. and everyone in the bar was very, very invested in this T.V. series. As the bar did not appreciate our noise and laughter during the T.V show, and we did not appreciate the rubbing alcohol the bar had served us, we chose to set out in search of another place to pass the night. We crossed the main square and stopped in front of a cluster of restaurants. We squinted, trying to make out which one offered the best prices. As we tried to choose which one to enter, waiters from the three different restaurants all ran outside to the edge of the sidewalk. They all started to yell, tried to coax us into their own respective restaurants. We stood there for a moment, bewildered as what was playing out before our eyes, and then all burst into laughter. The waiters started to laugh too but did not stop trying to offer us the best ofertas y precios. Slowly, we ended up shuffling into the middle restaurant and sat down. We all ordered Chilcano maracuyas and quickly after the waitress walked away, smelled that same sour, dirty-sock smell, the dog was back. Unable to handle the smell that was permeating the air, we nudged him with our feet onto the outside balcony and shut the door. I felt rather bad, but not that bad as my nose was finally at peace. Our drinks came out, once again extremely strong, but more drinkable than they had been at the other places. All in all, my advice for Ollantaytambo would be: proceed with caution when ordering drinks (Ollantaytambo doesn’t mess around) and stay away from the small, black dogs.