Leaving Cusco after a couple of days acclimatisation in the ancient Inca capital (~3,400m) we travelled toward Ollantaytambo to spend the night there as a jump off to the Inca Trail. In the morning we entered the Altiplano the massive high altitude plane that runs in the Andes from Peru, through Bolivia into Chile and Argentina, we stopped in a traditional Quechua village (the Quechua are the people that the modern world refers to as Inca's, Inca was actually the title for the royal family not the entire nation!). Anyway we stopped at a Quechua village and I had the best day of interaction with an indigenous local culture ever!!!!

In the past I've been on trips and done tours where the selling point has been interacting with the locals. I've done this in different places such as Lesotho, Turkey and Guatemala. On most of these occasions I've felt awkward at best to damn right intrusive. At this small Quechua village the experience was welcoming and enjoyable.

We got off the bus and were greeted by the head man of the village wearing his traditional clothes, not just for a tourist show but because he wore them everyday. Some more villages soon arrived and we marched in procession, with a villager playing a drum and another pan pipes (I was nervously looking for DJ Q) to the fields. Some of the men and women of the village performed a traditional ceremony to ask for a blessing the the various mountain spirits and gods prior to cultivation and then proceeded to demonstrate how to hoe the fields with there small, large bladed hoes. Little did we no at this stage that we'd be required to do the same in just a couple of minutes. As soon as they had completed their rows of hoeing they danced back to the start of the row and drink some chicha, a local mildly alcoholic beer which the Quechua claim, along with coca leaves, makes them work hard all day. They then decided it was our turn, the village leader approached me an nominated me 'El Captain' of our group and lead me through the offering ceremony and got me started hoeing a row of crop, followed by the other male members of the tour. It was bloody hard work especially as the hoes were designed for people with an average height of 155cm! Once I got to the end I was encouraged to dance back (see the photo of Ben dancing with his hoe) and go again. After a few rows and much laughing by tourists and Quechua's (and chitcha drinking) they decided it was time to take us to the other side of the village to show us how to re-'plaster' houses with mud.

An elderly Quechua lady grabbed by hand and started leading me skipping and dancing across the fields to the other side of the village, with drums and pan pipes playing we proceeded. Everyone in the group was adopted by a local and skipped-danced all the way. We were pretty much all in stitches laughing by they time we reached the village which wasn't so good as the skipping and dancing at over 3,500m takes enough of a toll without having your breathing compromised by laughing. They may lead a very simple existence full of hard back breaking labor but they have a lot of fun doing it!

Mud brick making started and soon a few of the Quechua men were stomping around in the mud mixing straw in for strength. The (jokingly) asked for volunteers from the gringo and I was stupid enough to take them up on there offer.......what can I say I love mud. Removing my shoes I waded in and started stomping, soon after to the amusement of the locals Sam another girl on my trip also jumped in. As soon as both of us were in the mud the drummer and panpipe-player appeared as if from nowhere and played a really long tune that was suitable to mix mud by. Once mixed they through the new 'plaster' on the existing walls of the house to add to the layers, it was a very therapeutic activity and a great relief to the mud stampers who could finally catch their breath.

These people were fantastic, so happy and willing to share there lives with us. They later showed us their potato farming and irrigation methods and fed us a hearty meal of soup, various potatoes and guinea-pig. Before we departed for Ollantaytambo. As an aside the potato for those who didn't know came from the Andes and they Quechua, unlike the Irish who have a similar love for spuds, have over 4,000 species of potato growing!