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Published: July 20th 2007
Caballos
Katie and I with our old, slow caballos.Well the past week has been fairly busy. My class made another trek up to Saqsaywaman on Saturday. We had our teacher along this time which made things more interesting. After lunch at the ruins we played a game of soccer with some local peasant children then hit the trail on our horses. Probably the slowest, laziest horses I have ever seen, but we had an awesome time. We were able to go much higher on the mountain and get a better view of the city and the Saqsaywaman ruins (refer to pic).
On Tuesday we headed to the Sacred Valley (45 mins from Cuzco) to check out the Pisac ruins in the morning and the Virgen del Carmen Festival in the afternoon. The Pisac ruins are by far the coolest I have seen thus far. The way the mountains rise so abruptly over the valley is absolutely dizzying (There´s a link to a video at the top of the this blog, ¨Sacred Valley¨). A few of us in the group went out onto the Inca´s perch, which stands alone a few hundred feet over the valley. Following our hike around the mountainside we trekked down to the city of
Pisac and the Virgen del Carmen festival. It consisted of many ritualistic dances that exemplify the different social classes in the area. Some of the most obvious costumes are the mestizos and their absurdly exaggerated noses.
Yesterday (Thursday) we headed back to the Sacred Valley, except this time we went farther up the valley to Ollayantambo. It is best known for its ruins, the only major site where the Incas actually defeated the damned Spaniards in battle. I only say this because the majority of the Inca ruins around here are only 20% of what they used to be, as a result of being pillaged by the Spanish. One of the only ruins to be untouched by the Spanish is the lost city of Machu Picchu, where will be going Saturday-Monday. So stoked. Salud,
--Johaan
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