OLLANTYATAMBO

Back from Machu Picchu, recuperating in the quaint Inca town. Which feels like it could be in Italy or Greece. Because the presence of history is so pervasive. In the angles and materials of the architecture. The preserved precision of a streetplan drawn up by another culture, radiating order, spatial prescience, urbanity. With its central square hemmed by pleasant restaurants and cafes. Clean air and mellow fruitfulness.

In that same square there's a small book fair. C wants to have a look. I don't like book fairs. They intimidate me. The books want to be bought and I never want to buy them. Or rather, I do want to buy them, I want to buy them all. But I know I won't. C picks out Hiram Bingham's Lost City of the Incas. It costs 25 soles. I tell her she can probably download it. She spots a copy of Garcilaso de la Vega's 'The Incas'. A book the guide in Machu Picchu  mentioned the day before. It's in English. This is a place which, like a pretty Greek town, is highly conscious of its tourist potential. I tell her I'm sure I can download it. The Gutenburg Press. All that. Modernity.

We walk on and visit the ruins. They're remarkable. A whole town spread out. With its temples and living quarters. Up on the hill, which is not too steep a climb, there's a bizarre, sci-fi like stone, polished, marked, incomplete, the size of a bungalow. Behind it is a fort, an ordinary ruined fort, like you might find in Scotland. It could be Dunsinane. The view is pleasant, unintimidating, on another scale to Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is for gods and eagles; Ollantyatambo could be a Roman villa. Water gurgles from rockfaces. An irrigation system fuels the fields at the side, the crops growing merrily.

After a few hours we head back through the town. The book fair is still there. I go over and buy the book.

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