Journey through Peru´s Sacred Valley

Cusco:

We arrived in Cusco on Monday, early in the a.m. We spent two days in Cusco, but the experience is a bit of a blur. Cusco is at an altitude of over 11,000 ft., and this is not an easy adjustment having come from sea level. We found that we were very tired and a little disoriented as we adjusted to it, though we still found time to explore this lovely city.

We wandered around the narrow, dirty cobblestone streets, up and down the hills. We also visited the Incan fortress outside the city center. At the center of Cusco is a piazza with many cafes where you can drink coffee or the traditional coca tea from a balcony overlooking the square. From there you could observe many tourists being solicited by local vendors selling hand knitted hats, gloves, and finger puppets, paintings, and banana cake. One of the most amazing sights that we observed in Cusco and other places are the local women who wear traditional clothing, consisting of knee length puffy skirts, woven shawls tied around their back in which they carried all sorts of things (babies, food, and goods to sell), and wide brimmed hats.

And, of course, we found plenty of time to enjoy the local cuisine. Highlights include the coca tea, which is the leaves of cocaine steeped in hot water, and best enjoyed with a lot of sugar. Supposedly the tea helps people adjust to the altitude, but I´m not sure we noticed an impact of any kind. We also found an amazing juice place, which had shelves filled with fresh fruits--papayas that were the size of pumpkins, green skinned oranges, and dark colored pineapples. Ali tried the watermelon juice and Benny had a mixture of cactus fruit and melon, and both were fantastic.

Train to Maccu Picchu and Aquas Callientes :

On Friday we woke at 5:30 a.m. to catch our taxi to the train station in a neighboring town. We then took the train to Aquas Callientes (yes, a town called Hot Water), which is at the base of Maccu Picchu. The train was very nice, and owned by the Orient Express company. During the three hour ride we descended in altitude over 5,000 feet. From the train as we near Aquas Callientes we can see masses of the porters who carry supplies for the trekkers on the Inca trail. Some of the porters carried packs that were nearly as big as them, and they have to carry them miles and miles up and down mountains. Aquas Callientes is a touristy, but fun city. The setting is gorgeous. We are surrounded by lush mountains--much more tropical than Cusco-- and a river rushes through the center of town. Everything in Aquas Callientes is overpriced, and we worry that Maccu Picchu will be ruined by the tourism, but in the end we are not disappointed. The cost of entrance to Maccu Picchu is steep, so we decide to wait to go until the next morning so we can enjoy a full day there.

We spend Friday wandering around Aquas Callientes. For some reason there seemed to be more children than adults living in the town. During our lunch we sat outside and must have seen thirty or more adorable children playing all around us. Kids as young as two or three seemed to be playing on the streets, often without parents nearby. It seemed that children ran the city.

Maccu Picchu:

We board the bus at 7a.m. to make our way up the winding mountain road to Maccu Picchu.

We wind higher and higher, the road right along the cliffside, and suddenly we can see the ruins emerge. They sweep across the top side of the mountain and are spectacular. Before exploring the ruins of Maccu Picchu itself we decide to go as quickly as we can toward the entrance of Huayna Picchu, which is another temple and agricultural site of the Incas, which is on a neighboring mountain, the peak of which is much higher than Maccu Picchu, and overlooks the ruins of Maccu Picchu. They only allow 200 people to hike up each morning, and we got in line just in time--we were numbers 194 and 195! They are very strict about the limits, which seems to help keep the path in impeccable shape. Before hiking up we have to sign in, and as we hiked up the steep path along a cliff-side, we wondered if it is to ensure that everyone returns safely. The hike up Huayna Picchu feels nearly vertical--you climb up a path of steep large stairs for nearly an hour before reaching the top. The view is both spectacular and terrifying at the same time. We can see the neighboring mountains and valley and all of the ruins of Maccu Picchu.

It took us over two hours to go up and down the Huayna Picchu hike, and by the end our legs feel like wet noodles. It would be a challenging hike to do anywhere, but given that it is in high altitude makes it much more challenging. We took a quick break after the hike, and then headed back into Maccu Picchu to wander around the ruins there. You can climb all around them, inside structures, across terraces that once held the crops, and peer out windows that overlook the mountains and valley. Llamas (which are actually pronounced yamas for all you Ramona Quimby fans out there who can recall this reference) grazed on grass in the ruins. We spent a couple hours walking around Maccu Picchu, and finally boarded the bus back to Aquas Callientes, exhausted, sweaty, but feeling like the experience totally lived up to, even exceeded our expectations. Pictures truly cannot do it justice, though we tried to capture the beauty.

Sacred Valley:

After Maccu Picchu we took the train to Ollantatambo, a small village in the Sacred Valley area. It was a lovely town, which held more Incan ruins, smaller in scale than Maccu Picchu, but still very interesting to explore. The town also had a great town square, and we had lunch there at a local Chifa place--Peruvian-Chinese food. Actually it was very similar to Chinese food in the U.S., but perhaps a little less greasy.

The next day we took a taxi to visit Moray. Moray is an Incan site of agricultural experimentation. Basically it is a set of ringed plateaus that move lower and lower down into a mountain, and each rung supposedly had a different microclimate. As we hiked into the center, we could definitely feel that the air became much warmer. Then we went to visit the salt mines. The Incans had developed a system to dehydrate salt water to obtain salt that was used to preserve food.

Next we went to the town of Pisac. We were tired after our long day of sightseeing, so made it an early night...The next morning, though, we got up early to wander around the huge Sunday market. The market held people selling produce, meat, cooked foods, and all sorts of crafts, mostly things woven out of Alpacca wool, which is extremely soft. From there we took a local bus back to Cusco, a 1 hour ride for less than $1! Tonight we stay in Cusco, and then tomorrow we are taking a bus to Puno, the town on Lake Titticacca. It is an eight hour tour bus trip that makes a number of stops at various sights...that´s it for now...We´ll try to blog again soon.