Cusco and the Sacred Valley

I woke up feeling rubbish again and couldn’t eat for feeling sick. I bought a few snacks for the bus in the hope I’d feel better later. I didn’t. The journey felt like an eternity but it was only a few hours. I was picked up at the bus station in Cusco and transferred to the hotel where I promptly fell asleep at 6pm. At 8 I was woken by the phone and was completely disorientated. What time did I want breakfast tomorrow? That was planning ahead! But it was only 8pm at night. I turned over and fell back asleep and slept straight through to morning.

My now I couldn’t decide if it was hunger pains or feeling sick pains. I opted for the first option and ventured a little breakfast of pancakes (at McDonalds - yes a McDonalds in Cusco and when you feel rubbish you want something familiar). I only ate a tiny amount but felt much better. The food and the lower altitude were working wonders.

I had a free morning in Cusco before my afternoon of sightseeing. I wandered the cobbled streets lined with fancy tourist shops. The back streets had an old world look to them; pretty carved wooden balconies, white washed walls with blue doors and shutters. The little cheaper markets were hidden down alleys. Cusco had an air of money about it, tourist money that is.

The tour in the afternoon took me around the sights of Cusco. Qorikancha is an Inca Temple (spellings vary for most of these place names). The Spanish built the Church of Santa Domingo on the top. It’s now an odd mix of Spanish church, cloisters, Inca ruins and fresco. The Spanish even plastered the walls of the original Inca building and painted them with elaborate frescos. The Inca walls however have been recently restored and their beautiful stone work can now be appreciated. It was my first close up view of an Inca building and the masonry was indeed impressive. No mortar just precise brickwork in trapezoid shapes made the structure not only sound but pretty earthquake proof too.

We visited the Cathedral which was flamboyant with huge silver alters; an intricately carved choir and a toilet in the second alter to the left. Saqsaywaman was the highlight of the tour for me though. Set a 2k up a hill on the edge of Cusco it has the astonishing Inca brick work on display. Here the ground level stones used are huge, up to 7m high and weigh up to 200tonnes. The amount of effort used to quarry these huge blocks, transport them without wheels (only rollers)then finely sculpt them to fit together perfectly without the need for mortar is remarkable.

The last two Inca sites were Tambomchay (a set of Inca fountains on a hill) and Q’enqo (a sacrificial altar in some caves on the hill). After seeing Saqsaywaman neither place aroused as much interest.

The next day I had another tour, this one to the Sacred Valley. The Incas lived in the valley off and on as it has a more temperate climate than the surrounding hills. The Sacred Valley starts at Pisac and follows the Uurbamba River down to Ollantaytambo our final destination.

We stopped at a textile works on the way. They housed many different types of llama, alpaca and vicuna all of which we could feed as we patted them. Every tourist shop worth its salt in Peru has something made from alpaca wool. After the expensive vicuna, baby alpaca is the best followed by llama and sold in the markets ‘maybe alpaca’. Even after feeding the llamas and alpacas I couldn’t r=tell the difference. Apparently the llama is bigger but when you see them individually they all looked pretty similar to me.

After a brief stop in Pisac (at another market), we drove down the valley and stopped for lunch in a little village. The restaurant had tables set in the garden and another hot and cold buffet. I was an honorary American for the day. The group I was with were all friends from the States but we lunched and chatted over the delicious food.

The afternoon concluded with a visit to more Inca ruins. Ollantaytambo was a Royal Inca palace. Little is left but the ruins on the hillside above the village still afford impressive views down the valley. The terraces are still intact and part of the Sun Temple is too. There is still evidence of a carved Inca Cross (or Andean Cross) on its walls. Ollantaytambo was giving me a taste for Machu Picchu. I couldn’t wait for the next day and my travels to Aguas Calientes at the foot of the famous ruins.

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