Blogs from Sacred Valley, Cusco, Peru, South America
View of the Sacred Valley
The waiting was finally over, and a very big day was upon us. Today we was about to embark on a week- long tour that started in Cusco, and that would end by seeing the awesome Machu Piccu. A brief rundown of our itinerary is as follows: Day 1 - Meeting with the group and the Trek leader Day 2 - The Sacred Valley Days 3, 4 ,5 & 6 – The Inca Trail, and Machu Piccu Day 7 – Return to Cusco Trying to fit 7 days into one blog was never going to be easy (especially the way I waffle on about all sorts of crap!) and is why I am going to split this into not 2 but 3 blogs! Otherwise, if I had the memory and the time to write about everything ... read more
Hello again to all, once again a lot of time between entries as we had no internet once we left Cusco. To catch up- Elliot felt a bit better the next day (just in time for New Year´s Eve), but still a bit shakey, so we took it pretty easy, we explored the city of Cusco, San Blas, the markets, and went to a few interesting museums. The day went by pretty fast and we went to a cultural show with music, and dancing from the Andes, Incas etc... very interesting. We went to have a few drinks before new year´s over looking the plaza and tried a maracuya sour (yum!). We were also both chatted up by a very drunk local man who bought us beer (very odd)... but after decided we hadn´t been drugged ... read more
Sarah loves the place
From the Inca Capital of Cuzco, we bid farewell to our friends and made the short bus ride to the village of Pisaq in The Sacred Valley of the Incas or Urubamba Valley. This is a valley in the Andes mountain which was formed along the Urubamba River, not too far from Machu Picchu. It is fed by numerous rivers which descend through adjoining valleys and gorges, and contains archaeological remains and villages. The valley was appreciated by the Incas due to its special geographical and climatic qualities. It was one of the empire's main points for the extraction of natural wealth, and one of the most important areas for maize production in Peru. Sarah and I spent a couple of days here chilling out and hiking around the valley. The region seemed to have a ... read more
So were on our bus with the rest of the group. Our tour to machu picchu consisted if a guided tour to pisac, olataytambo and the sacred valley before leaving the group who would head back to cusco and we would catch our train to Agnes calientes. Stay the night there and get up for sunrise to Mp. It all sounded great and all in Spanish. Our guide ploughed into full on info about pisac and well who knows. We must of had that 'que??' look on our faces as he shuffled up to us and asked if we spoke Spanish. He spoke English perfectly so we were in luck but there were still some lost in translation moments when he would talk in Spanish, at length, they would all laugh and our translation would be ... read more
Sunday September 11th Another full day of walking and visiting ruins. When we left Cusco it was raining and as we started driving past the ruins from yesterday (from the city tour) it was gorgeous! But, as we entered the Sacred Valley (Valle Sagrado) the clouds came in again and by the time we reached Pisac, the first ruins, it was rainy, windy, and cold! So, the ruins weren´t that enjoyable although they did look mysterious in the clouds and rain which was cool. We spent some time in the colonial town below the ruins in the market before driving another hour to reach Urubamba, the town where we stopped for lunch. The lunch buffet at the restaurants there was was specifically for tourists and so incredibley expensive. Vivi and I had brought sandwiches and snacks ... read more
Firstly congratulations to my brother and nic for the arrival of another (ginger) baby girl. Today i did the sacred valley tour which pretty much involved going to lots of different ruins. Now if you explain one lot of ruins you have pretty much explained them all but i guess its just one of those things you have to be there, all of them really are magnificent. I love Peru its awesome even the scenery whilst driving from place to place is just spectacular. I made a few new friends today from Argentina they were on my tour bus one in particular took a bit of a shine to me and was following me everywhere taking photos which for 5 mins was ok but got a bit tiresome after 6 hours. I think his heart was ... read more
Machu Picchu
Our trip to Peru had been on the back burner for about a year. Every time we thought we had narrowed down a date something came up, and we delayed it for another couple of months. Finally, we decided to take a "now or never" approach, and booked a flight for two weeks time. And are we ever glad we did! Peru was amazing - everything turned out to be better than we had hoped for - the breath-taking mountain scenery, the exotic Amazon rainforest, the kind people with their colourful culture and wonderful food. It was our first travel experience in South America, but I'm sure we'll be back! Before the trip, we had a busy couple weeks - travelling last minute in "peak" season made for some difficult (and expensive) planning. Peru is a ... read more
Sisters at the colourful market in Huilloq
Along with another Australian lady staying at our hotel in Cusco we left for a day trip through the Sacred Valley, (ending in Ollantaytambo where we were going to spend the next few days) in a taxi. Our young driver was a law student during the week, a taxi driver on weekends, driving his brand new car, which he unfortunately dented slightly that day. An hour driving through very pretty countryside took us to the Inca fortress near Pisac, a small village renowned for its tourist markets. The agricultural terraces surrounding the fortress, set high on a hill above the village, were very impressive. We spent a couple of hours walking the cliff-hugging footpaths and staircases around the large site. After that we headed into the Pisac markets - dozens of stalls all selling the ... read more
our lovely group!
The Inca Trail! From Rachael's perspective: The day before the Inca trail we set off from our hotel in Cuzco and got onto the minibus with the rest of the group. That day we were just travelling through the Sacred Valley visiting Inca sites and arriving at a town near the beginning point of the Inca trail. We were quite apprehensive about who was going to be in our group as it would make all the difference but we were lucky and had an amazing group from lots of different countries, we were the only English people. The day was lovely the Sacred Valley was stunning, our little minibus wound its way around the side of mountains. We also visited a traditional community where the people still wore the same dress as they had for years ... read more
P1010069
Having been prescribed antibiotics and other drugs back in Puno I assumed I was all set for the Inca trail after a days rest at our hotel. Silly me! That night I started chucking up my spinach ravioli from the previous night and diddley squitting more too. God it was awful. My roomie took one look at me when she woke up at about 6.30am and rushed off to summon a doctor. After a full examination they broke the bad news to me that I needed to be rushed off to hospital back in Cusco to have loads of tests, a drip, drugs etc. Having suffered NO altitude sickness symptoms at all compared to the rest of the groups headaches, vomitting etc it seemed it was going to me that didn't get to do the trek, ... read more
