Cusco, Saqsayhuaman, Moray and Salineras

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Back so soon? you cry, well we thought we´d split things up, to help out those of you who hate the old really long blogs.

After the tour we took we decided to move to a different hostel, and we made a really good choice other than the whole sporadic hot water situation. We have a bigger room, our own bathroom, free internet and kitchen access for cheaper than the other place. We decided to do some of our own cooking while we´re in one place for long enough to save the old pennies.

We´ve spent lots of time looking at museums, (mostly the free ones though, and when I say free I mean included in the 130 soles you have to pay if you want to see any tourist attractions in Cusco. However, the best places we visited we had to pay extra, obviously.)

Most of the museums were largely about religious art, even if they said they were about something else. The museums that were actually about the Incas really only had bits of pottery and old spear heads, which gets repetitive after 3 museums. Having said that, some of the religious art was quite interesting, several things always popped up and it wasn´t until the last museum that we finally understood them.

The things we did that were really enjoyable were exploring some of the Inca ruins nearby by ourselves. I´ve always thought it was so important to have a guide when you´re looking at something, otherwise you don´t understand anything you´re seeing, however we had so much more fun going at our own pace and trying to work out what most thing were. We were actually right most of the time!

On our first day exploring we walked up to the ruins of Saqsayhuaman (pronounced slightly like sexy woman) from the center of town. Saqsayhuaman was a Fortress Temple which was used defensively when the Spanish arrived in Cusco in 1534. Built on a cliff, it only has one defensive wall which zig zags round the fortress, forming the teeth of the puma of which Saqsayhuaman is said to be the head (Cusco is apparantly in the shape of a puma.) As huge and interesting as Saqsayhuaman was, the most fun we had was exploring the peripheral sites of which there were a few, and trying to work out was each was used for. Directly opposite Saqsayhuaman was a huge throne type place carved into the stone, where rituals were clealry carried out. On the other side of this the stone had been polished in bumps so it looked like a series of slides, and we later found out that´s exactly what they were used for! Slightly further on was a huge amphitheatre type thing, and behind that we had great fun discovering a massive series of tunnels dug into the rock, which was apparantly part of a graveyard. We then found to our amazement that the structures kept going, and carved onto the rock we lots of dips and holes, and a series of irrigational channels leading into bath-like rock structures. We thought that it might have been used as a bath area if when it rains the holes fill up and lead into the channels, and it was actually used in that way for the ritual of a boy becoming a man.

The next day we decided to visit the agricultural laboratory known as Moray, just outside of the town of Maras. This place is included in the boleto turistico but it was incredibly hard to get to. We had to take a taxi to the bus station, then get a bus to Urubamba and ask to be dropped off at the road to Maras, which we had intended to walk but were told it would take roughly 2 hours to walk to Moray and since we didn´t know the way, we thought we´d get a taxi there and then walk back and on to Salineras, a salt mine. However once we arrived in Maras we were guilt tripped into being driven to Moray as well since there was one other person who wanted to go there, and if we stayed we could split the fare. Again we were led like foolish tourists when we arrived because the taxi man offered to stay and wait for us, then take us back to Maras from where we could walk to Salineras easily. He said there was no direct path from Moray to there, so we took him up on his offer.

We spent about 45 minutes looking around Moray, which is actually all you need really. There´s about 3 of these weird circular terrace things (that you can see from the pictures) cut into the ground, and each terrace has a slightly different micro-climate and the Incas used them to grow different grains one each level to see which environment was best. It is very impressive but not nearly as good as the next part of our day.

After having been dropped off by the path from Maras to Salineras we headed bck to Maras to get some food; (who would have thought the best Andean lunch you can find is an egg butty?) And then started on our walk to the salt mine. It was really beautiful, as you can see from the pictures, and we didn´t come across one tourist on the way, just an old Peruvian man and his dog. It was so calm and peaceful, we really appreciated getting away from gringo land for a while. When we finally arrived at a place where we got our first glimpse of Salineras we were astounded at the complexity of it, and realised we had made the right choice about which part of the route we should walk. The way Salineras was built was in a series of salt pans dug into the incredibly salty earth, all intricately linked by an irrigation system which can be blocked off to feed some of the salt pans rather than others. Once a salt pan has filled up, the water is diverted elsewhere and once the water has evaporated the salt left over is collected and used in cow licks. It has been in use constantly since Inca times, and you can see local people still working there now. It was amazing to see it actually working and we wondered why more people don´t come to visit this site if they´re in Cusco; it was my personal favourite. And just like mkaing a sandwich, it´s so much better when you do it yourself!

The next day we went to Qoricancha which was at one point the main Inca temple, and had several huacas or temples all around it all over the empire with Qoricancha at the centre. Nowadays you can only see the foundations of the site because, once again, the Catholics built on top of it. Its a church and monastery now, but they haverecently made a big effort to preserve the Inca history of the place. This was the best museum we´ve been to, it had a really good collection of, you guessed it, religious art, that was actually explained in English and helped answer lots of our questions. For instance Mary is always depicted with the heads of small children just at the bottom of her dress, which apparantly represent cherubs lifting her up into heaven.

That´s about all from our week in Cusco, we definitely make the right choice about coming here for Easter (we did catch lots of interesting parades) instead of stopping off at less interesting places along the way. There are many good restaurants and nice things to do here, eating breakfast has been my favourite! So we´re off to start the Inca Trail tomorrow, and have made the, perhaps foolish, decision to carry our own bag in turns rather than pay for a porter, just to save some pennies again, but also to get a greater sense of accomplishment!

Hopefully you´ll hear from us in 5 days time!

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Comments

[Vicky]

luggage!
Amazingly interesting - how do you remember all those facts? Young brains are certainly a great deal more retentive than older brains! I do hope the bags don't prove to be too heavy and that you don't fall for the temptation to throw out just about everything in your bag to lighten the load, and then when you camp you find you've nothing to keep you warm at night or eat off! Could be interesting. Good luck and looking forward to reading your comments following life changing experience and views! xx

[Ryan, The, Murphy, The.]

"Saqsayhuaman (pronounced slightly like sexy woman)" This line made my day.

[Kayleigh]

I really think you have probably learnt so much more than I have during a year of university. And spent less money!