El Valle Sagrado

Cusco is surrounded by so many historical Incan ruins and musuems that you could spend months to years exploring all they have to offer. True to form we procrastinated until our last few weeks to plan out and see all 17 sites included on the boleto touristico (a ticket for all sites valid for ten days total). Due to our procrastination and Liz catching an unfortunate unknown sickness we ended up cramming the sites into three days (and not totally succeeding). Our history buff friend Andy took us to the ruins around Cusco for one day and the following days we ventured out into the Sacred Valley on our own. There was so much to see and it was all very beautiful. We understand now why it is called the Sacred Valley and how people can spend months or even years there.

Scenes from the four sites surrounding Cusco:

Tambomachay

Pukapukara

Outside of the Q'enko labyrinth

View of Cusco and the Q'enko ruins

Q'enko sacrifical altar for llamas y niños.

We slid down this! Just like the Incas (we kid).

¿How did they do it?

part of  Sacqsaywaman (pronounced sexy woman)

We took a bus 30 minutes over the mountains to the beautiful town of Pisac. This little getaway came at a great time because we were starting to feel the strains of the loud and congested city. Above Pisac there are a group of ruins linked by hiking trails that you can explore at your own pace. We opted to take a taxi to the top because of the steep grade, but carefully walked our way back down to town. There was a great market in the town's plaza where we honed our bartering skills. Whether it was the cool mountain air, the breathtaking vistas, or love in the air due to it being Valentine's Day, Pisac remains one of our favorite sites to date.

If we were technologically savvy...we´d stitch these photos together. Alas, you´ll have to use your imagination!

Pisac: ruins above...town below.

Pisac

Valentine's flowers...be mine?

Blazing our own trail

Chinchero

The next day we went further into the valley and visited three other sites: Chinchero, Moray, and Salinas. Chinchero was another quiet little town and we had beautiful weather while exploring the ruins. Once it started to rain we decied to move on to Moray and Salinas. We had to hire a taxi to drive to and between the sites, which only gave us forty minutes at each place. It felt a bit rushed, but we are still glad we were able to see both sites before leaving the Cusco area. We didn't end up making it to all the sites in the Sacred Valley, but it will give us something to look forward to when we return.

Between a rock and a hard place?

One of the many benefits of visiting during the off season is that you get to witness all the work and restoration that goes into each site. Apparently the way to rebuild an Incan wall is to do it the old fashioned way...with elbow grease and orange hard hats, and maybe a rope. Even though they try to recreate what the Incans did, no one is quite sure how they pulled it off. Therefore it´s still really easy to tell original Incan stonework from the "restored".

Inca steps!

Moray was an experiment in agriculture for the Incas. As you move down the terraces, the temperature changes by 5 degrees. It must have actually made a difference. You can see in the photos that the density of vegetation at the bottom was quite different than the top. Liz was really excited to use the Incan steps (aka rocks jutting out of the wall at two foot increments), and we both had fun with the acoustics in the center of the ring.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note the people for scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salinas from above

Salinas is a series of thousands of man-made pools fed by salt water hot springs. These pools fill with water through strategically located channels, which then evaporates, leaving salt to harvest. The locals still work here as their their ancestors have for thousands of years. It was quite the site looking down from high in the valley, and also fun to walk among the pools to get a closer look.