Peru: Day Six - Part One

We woke up that morning at 2 a.m. to catch our flight to Cusco, waking up a taxi driver sleeping on a couch in the hostel lobby. After arriving at the airport, we were informed that we had been bumped to a slightly later flight, so we had another half an hour or so to wait.

The flight was only a couple of hours, and on our way out of the airport, we came across a booth with a woman signing people up for tours of the Sacred Valley, which was exactly what we wanted to do that day. We paid for the day long tour, which included lunch, and were informed that the bus would pick us up at our hotel in about an hour. Perfect!

We took a cab to our hotel, and on the way I absolutely fell in love with Cusco. The city has retained the original Spanish colonial feel (for the tourists, of course) and it was so gorgeous. I really felt like we were suddenly somewhere in Spain, until I saw the house climbing up the hills in traditional Peruvian fashion. We arrived at our hotel (we had booked a hotel in advance so we would have somewhere trustworthy to leave our backpacks), and they were kind enough to hold our bags while we were gone, since it was too early for check-in. A man at the hotel offered us some coca leaf tea, used to relieve altitude sickness, but as we were both feeling pretty good, we politely declined.

The bus picked us up, along with several lovely couples and our English-speaking tour guide (thank goodness). Our guide was a lovely man named Javier, who spoke fantastic English (we later discovered, through discussion, that his first language had been Quechua, the Inca language, and that made it easier to learn English).

The bus drove through the Sacred Valley, which was very green (the name of the valley comes from the Sacred River; sacred because it brought the water necessary to grow the best corn in Peru). We stopped briefly at an outdoor market where Bergs bought the fabulous knife below, decorated with sheep components (hair, teeth, horn) and this lovely overlook. I also took some pictures of the Incan terraces on the hillside. The terraces began naturally, but the Incas improved them to decrease erosion.

Our first official stop was Pisaq. I've decided that in the interest of saving space and the time of my dear readers, I will include Wikipedia links for those who would like more historical information, and focus more on the pictures and experience. You can read about Pisaq here. Here is a close-up view of the terraces, and some houses.

These are tombs. Each small hole is a tomb for a poor person. The finer openings are for rich people. Everywhere in Incan architecture, the rougher stones are for poor people, and the well carved stones are for rich people or temples.

This is me "leaning".

Next up: Ollantaytambo! The temple to the Sun God. There were over 200 steps to the very top. This city was a customs check of sorts for anyone travelling to the Incan Empire. They would be required to check in at this city. Here is the view from the bottom, and a structure across the valley. The shape on the left is a face in the mountain. It is another example of a natural formation that the Incas improved upon.

Next are steps that were used to get from one terrace to the next, and the official entrance to the temple.

Handles used to carry the stones, a storage space, and another door.

The ramp used to pull the stones up (and a more modern bull fighting ring) and me standing at the top in front of some gigantic stones, so close together that you couldn't even slide a piece of paper between them. It was amazing.

Proof of the lack of safety railings, and another view from the bottom.

A recently discovered aqueduct, a bathing house, and yet another bottom view.

Another street market, and the customs doors (I had to take this picture as we were driving away, and a van drove in front of us, most inconveniently).

I'm going to call it good for this post, as there are still so many more pictures for day six.

Thanks for reading!