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Published: February 17th 2010
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We arrived in Cusco early in the morning and met up with Morgan without too much difficulty considering our relaxed organizational skills! I was eager to start exploring some Inca ruins so we hiked the steep hill up to Saqsaywaman, above Cusco. The size of the stones and the intricacies of the way they fit together would prepare us for the wonders of Inca architecture to come. Our guide book described the ruins of Q'enqo and Tambomachay as being just up the road, "a pleasant walk through the countryside", so we set out along a horse track to try to find them. Well we did not find them, but we ended up on a hilltop that gave us a spectacular view of the Cusco valley and the Andes. My appetite was whetted for the Inca trail, but we couldn't enjoy the vista for long as there were huge rain clouds moving in. We got caught in the downpour and slipped and slid down the muddy slopes to the town where we were ushered into a hotel by a helpful security guard to wait out the worst of it. We were soon to find out that this afternoon downpour was a regular
occurrence in Cusco, and this year would result in the flooding and mudslides that stranded so many tourists and caused several deaths around Machu Picchu later in the month. That night our energy deserted us and what was supposed to be an afternoon nap at 5:30pm turned into a much-needed 14 hours of sleep! Our 3 days in transit from Bolivia to Peru had finally caught up with us.
The next day was spent doing organizational things and exploring the markets and beautiful streets and squares of Cusco. There are still Inca walls in place today and the contrast between these and the colonial architecture is striking. One of the most interesting areas was the food market, where Chuck and Morgan were brave enough to try a fruit and vegetable smoothie. We walked through the meat aisles and saw hearts and lungs hanging on hooks, piles of cow muzzles with whiskers and teeth still attached, and buckets of frogs! Not for the faint of heart or the vegetarian!
On our third day, we negotiated with a taxi driver and arranged for him to drive us to some of the ruins in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. Our
first stop was Pisac, a spectacular ruin carved into the side of a mountain. We marveled at the feat of engineering that created the terraces still intact today and we tried to guess which rock was the "hitching post of the Sun". An eerie discovery were skulls peering at us from pillaged tombs in the side of a cliff across the gorge. We ended up being quite lucky in our timing as hordes of tourists descended upon the site just as we were leaving. I could hardly begrudge them the chance to see this spectacular ruin even if they were rude and loud and had no concept of how to share a trail!
After a delicious lunch of corn soup, lomo saltado (like a salty beef stir fry with french fries and rice) and helado for dessert in Pisac town,
we continued along the Sacred Valley to the town of Urubamba, where we ascended a switchbacked pass to reach the rolling pastures above. Tucked in a gorge in these pastures are the Salinas or salt pans, which are still in use today. Chuck says that this was one of his favourite ruins and it was truly astounding. Hundreds and
hundreds of salt pans extended down into the gorge, all fed from the same slowly-trickling hot salt water stream! The salt is sold overseas and prized for its iron content but apparently is not popular at all in Peru due to its pink colour!
After the impressive sight of Salinas, our next ruin was a bit of a letdown. We headed through the fields of potatoes (amazingly most are still tilled and cultivated by hand!) to the town of Chinchero. The attraction there is a church built on the ruined walls of an Inca temple. The church was indeed impressive with ornate decoration and gold leaf work, but we seemed to be the only tourists around and were descended upon by children hawking wares. They can be very insistent and I always feel guilty telling them no! We didn't spend long and soon headed back to Cusco.
Just outside of Cusco, we were able to see Q'enqo and Tambomachay, which we had missed two days prior because of the weather. Tambomachay has the "bath of the Incas" which is a fountain that has been functioning for hundreds of years, and Q'enqo is a former sacrificial site. Unfortunately they
both suffered a plague of tourists, the opposite of Chinchero. After a heated discussion with our taxi driver who had doubled the price of his services for the day without telling us, we returned to Cusco and had an early dinner of pizza and caipirinhas (sp?) to fortify us for the Inca Trail the next day!
I have also included photos from our couple of days in Cusco after the Inca Trail (see separate post for details of the Trail!). We were feeling a bit tired of everything Inca (hard to believe given my enthusiasm at Saqsaywaman above) but we wanted to see a museum and we were informed that we couldn't miss Quoricancha, which is an Inca Temple with a monastery built on top of it! The museum didn't disappoint, with Inca mummies and one of their amazing counting ropes. The temple was a bit disappointing however. Apparently when the Spanish arrived, the walls and floors were lined with gold and silver, which they promptly melted down for their own uses. The walls were very fine examples of Inca building but I couldn't jog my imagination enough to picture it the way the Spanish would have discovered it.
The best part ended up being and exhibit of contemporary Peruvian art. I'm not sure what the theme was but all of the sculptures and pieces were fantastical and whimsical, such as the demon-like figure in the photo, or a rocking horse with the body of a sphinx, or a pair of traditional Inca jugs dancing a jig!
Our original plan at that point had been to catch a bus to Ica on the coast of Peru and that night we packed our bags and hauled them to the bus station, only to find out that there was a bus strike on and there would be no buses anywhere in Peru until 5 to 7 days later! We returned to our original hotel with our tails between our legs. I was feeling sick at that point (which I was to discover later were the beginning stages of possible Typhoid Fever, but that is another story) so Chuck and Morgan rushed out and were able to get tickets to fly to Iquitos the next morning. We went to bed starting to get excited about our impromptu Amazon Jungle cruise!
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