Being a tourist round Cusco

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Paulina who is the director of the clinic organised her niece to take me on a tour around the sacred valley yesterday. So Marcia, her niece collected me bright and early at 8am to go to tour bus.
It was nice to be able to talk english again for a change, as all the people on the bus spoke english!
There are loads of towns and ruins around cusco, so I still have more to see. But yesterday I went to Pisaq, a fairly big town with large market and big ruins. Stopped for lunch at Urubamba. Ruins at Ollantaytambo, really big ruins! And the last stop was Chinchero, which was the highest stop of all, about 3760m, this was a really traditional village with gorgeous church and lovely people!
Pisaq ruins were great, really big. Apparently these ruins belonged to a community that loved before the Incas made it big, The Incas tended to ask communities if they wanted to be peacefully a part of the Inca empire. If the said no they would fight them but this community in Pisaq apparently said yes. The Incas brought technology to the community that allowed them to farm up the mountain where the land is less fertile, rather than working in the valley and living up the mountain. These were called terraces, and you can see them everywhere. I don't know how they make the ground fertile, but they do apparently. There was also evidence in that the mountains were used as graveyard.

Then we went to market in Pisaq. Really bustling local market, you feel pressure to buy things from them so I didnt stay long at each stall. But there are loads of cool things but not enough room in my bag!! And everything is quite cheap too. I did buy a wee oil painting from a guy and a really awesome chess set for like £6, which i probably could have got for cheaper but I didn't want to haggle with the child that was selling it. but its only my first week so I can buy too much now!!

We stopped at Urubamba for lunch, which was included in the tour. There were 2 restaurants and for some reason me and this canadian guy Rich had to go to one and then everyone else went to the other. Rich was a nice guy, he works in Haiti, and works for 6 weeks then gets 2 weeks off and he basically goes on hoildays every 6 weeks. Which is pretty nice! We had fun laughing at how stupid americans are. My biggest regret is that I didnt take a photo of that restaurant cause it was class with all these straw huts and the mountain in the background.

Then onto Ollantaytambo, which was apparently a massive deal to Incas. They had something in the mountain that when winter solstice on 21st June comes around the suin shines through their structures and they know its the start of the year. Theye have terraces there too but they can only find remains of flowers there, no vegetables. So they think this was a major temple for them. There is also a really impressive wall of the temple that the Incas built, and we still do not know how they managed to cut all the rock. They also made their structures earthquake proof, pretty ahead of their time. The Inca fled to the amazon when they were attacked by the spanish, apprently we don't really know what happened to them.

We then stopped at Chinchero which is a really traditional community. They showed us how they make all their clothes and all the natural dyes. Lllamas, especially baby ones, are dead soft. It was really interesting. There is a big field there that they do this weird thing to potatoes. Its so high up that it freezes over night. And they freeze the potatoes and in the morning squeeze water out of them and repeat for like weeks. Then the potatoes can be stored and last for months. There was also a really beautiful church there. The Spanish were really good at convincing all the Incan people that they were living in sin and worshiping false gods and had to become catholics. Bit harsh since they came over and slaughtered them. But they took to it and they have some beautiful churches.

Was a great wee day, and now I can rest before my first day in the clinic.

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Photos

Some Incan Ruins
ruins at ollantaytamba