Valle Sagrado

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Carolina, Bri, Xavier and I went on a tour of the Valle Sagrado. The van picked us up sharply at 8 o clock. We had no expectations, other than lunch was supposed to be provided. Our tour guide, Puma, was a friendly guy who spoke English, French, Spanish and Quechua. As we drove by Sacsayhuaman (pronounced ‘sexy woman’) he talked about the history, geography and culture. For example , the word ‘Inca’ refers really only to the king, not to the culture. The culture (and language) is Quechua. Also, Cusco should really be pronounced ‘Cosco’, because it refers to the Quechua word for ‘navel’ as in ‘the navel of the world’, which is what this city is supposed to be. As opposed to ‘cusco’ which was the Spanish Conquistador’s word for ‘little dog’. Interesting stuff. Anyway, our tour had four stops: Moray, which was lovely, in its terraces. Ollantaytambo, with its really cool market and ruins in the shape of a llama (supposedly). Windy, though. Also, my favorite was Pisac, with nice terraces, storage buildings and graves dug out on the sides of a cliff and beautiful fountain. We also stopped at a nice Llama zoo type of place where we could pet and feed the llamas, and of course, take the obligatory pictures. A nice surprise was our lunch at a fancy restaurant called Tunupa, which was serving a Peruvian buffet for the likes of us, complete with Pisco Sour. By the way, according to our guide, the drinking age in Peru is 7 (seven) years old, so Xavier tasted my Pisco Sour, and quickly decided it was awful. The rest of the food was pretty awesome, though, including ‘seco de alpaca’ all kinds of salad and this huge kind of corn that only grows in the Valle Sagrado. Seriously, the kernels on that corn are the size of my toenail. I bet Xavier $20 that he can’t bring himself to eat the Cuy (traditional Peruvian guinea pig, served whole, roasted). He says he’s thinking about it.
In Chinchero, we were treated to a tour of a church built right on top of a Quechua temple, and watched some weavers do some work. The market was really nice, but unfortunately, by the time we got there, the sun was way past set, and it was time to go home.

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