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Published: September 5th 2009
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The Andes at sunrise We arrived in Cuzco on Sunday 08/23/09 very early in the morning, around 7:15am, and were picked up by a representative from Hotel Inkarri, where we had reserved a “Triple room” with a full-size bed plus a twin bed up in the loft. We had taken the anti-altitude sickness pills Sorochji (sp?) about ½ hour prior to our flight, so we didn’t have any of the symptoms of being at 3,400 meters (~11,150 feet) above sea level other than feeling totally oxygen deprived. It hadn’t even been two minutes since we had gotten off the airplane when Ben said—to no one in particular—“OK, feel free to turn on the oxygen anytime now!” Just walking around felt like you’d just run a marathon (not that I’ve ever run one, but you get the idea).
At the Inkarri, they immediately gave us coca tea to help deal with the altitude, and after we checked in, they set us up in a temporary room (our reserved room wasn’t ready yet) so that we could rest for a bit before we were picked up by Percy, our private tour guide.
Percy showed up on time at 9am and we asked him to take
us to the main train station to get our tickets to go to Machu Picchu on Tuesday. We got the tickets and then asked him if he knew a good place where to get a bite for breakfast. He took us to Yajúú (not a misspelling—pronounced Yahoo), a sandwich and juice place, which ended up being a favorite of ours while in Cuzco. With the ticket business out of the way and full bellies, we started our tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas.
The Sacred Valley is located along the River Urubamba (aka Vilcanota) between the towns of Pisac to the SE and Machu Picchu to the NW. Our tour that day included visits to Awanacancha, Pisac, Calca, Maras, Moray, and Chinchero. The circuit is about 200Km (115mi) and would take all day.
We arrived in Awanacancha, which has a farm with llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas. We saw the two types of llamas, long and short hair, fed the animals, took lots of pictures. They sure knew when we were holding a handful of feed: They would all come running towards us, but they were pretty gentle when taking the food, so no fingers were lost.
The center also serves as a community work complex, where members of 14 local communities take turns caring for the animals, producing llama and alpaca wool, dying them using plants or minerals, and hand-making textiles, sweaters, scarves, rugs, and other items for sale. We stopped by the shop (where pictures were not allowed) and we saw some really beautiful pieces. However, the prices were astronomical—I told one of the salesladies that if I bought one of the tapestries I would have to forgo my visit to Machu Picchu!
From Awanacancha, we went to Pisac, where the local communities hold their largest market activities, where they still practice trading goods, no money exchanges hands. Very unique and colorful. A religious procession was underway when we got there; it seems that there’s always a religious festivity going on almost every day in the small towns we visited.
We also stopped by the tourist market (read: tourist trap), but didn’t see anything that caught our eye. I had heard from others who had recently visited Cuzco and surrounding areas that the prices are now pretty high there. Years ago, you could find bargains—not anymore. We headed back to Percy’s car and
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Town in the Andes continued on to Calca for lunch. Ben had Lomo saltado, I had fresh avocado and Sopa a la minuta (ground beef and angel hair soup). Cathy had Inca Kola and nibbled from our plates.
After lunch, we continued on to Maras, a town dedicated to salt mining. We visited the salt mines, which are created by an underground stream of warm, salty water that is channeled along hundreds of pools set up in terraces on a mountain side. Percy explained that the entire salt mining complex has been in use since Inca times (starting in the 1200s) and now belongs to the families in town. Each family owns a few of the pools and they tend to their own pools and sell the product for different purposes: The top quality salt is for human consumption; the lower quality, for animals. The way the terrace system works is with the water running along channels that cascade from level to level. When a pool needs filling, the family “unplugs” the opening form the channel to the pool. When the pool’s full, they close it back up. Then they wait until the water evaporates (we’re taking weeks); the salt dries in chunks
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Farmland so there is a manual process to “wash” and break up the salt. Needless to say, the honor system is king here and all families respect each other’s salt pools, as there are not markings or walls separating them.
We also picked up chunks of salt and tasted it—very pure, better tasting than the processed, prepackaged stuff from the grocery stores in the US. Cathy and Ben quickly remarked that this was possibly my favorite place to be (I always add salt to my food). They even said that I should get a little salt statue from the gift shop (there’s ALWAYS a gift shop), keep it at my desk at work, and lick it like a lollipop. Um, I passed on that, but yes, it was a pretty awesome place that demonstrated the Inca’s engineering skills and communal activities. And no, I wouldn’t mind owning a salt pool there and having my own personal supply of pure, fresh salt!
From Maras we headed to Moray, an experimental crop-growing terrace complex that was used in Inca times. They are now archeological sites. The terraces were built in strategic areas of the valley that allowed the Incas to use
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Coca tea, a must in Cuzco the micro-climates created by the varying altitudes and cultivate a variety of produce: vegetables in the lower levels, grains in the mid levels, and potatoes in the higher levels. There are more than 2,000 varieties of potatoes—the potato is native to Peru—and more than 150 varieties of sweet potatoes. This was a pretty impressive place!
The next stop would have been Chinchero, but due to our late start (our fault) and the fact that, being in a private tour we could stay as long as we wanted at the different places, it was already getting dark and us travelers were pretty tired from a very early flight and a full day of sightseeing. We headed back to Cuzco, arriving well after dark. Percy dropped us off at the hotel; we would see him again the next day for our city tour.
Ben, Cathy, and I made pit stops in our room—the hotel staff had already moved our bags from the temporary room to our reserved room—and went out to dinner. Ben and Cathy had a burger (ground beef mixed with vegetables) with cheese (Andean cheese) and fries. I had Rocoto relleno (a hot bell-shaped pepper stuffed with ground
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Cute corner at Inkarri's old courtyard beef, herbs, and spices).
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel for a much needed shower and good night sleep.
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