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Published: November 19th 2014
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Today Kelly and I took our long anticipated tour of the Sacred Valley. The tour got off to a shaky start when the tour company told us to get on one bus, which apparently was the Spanish speaking bus. After driving a couple of miles down the road the bus stopped and the tour guide told us to get on the bus in front of ours. After making our way over to that bus and climbing on we soon realized that this bus was Spanish speaking also. In the end the tour guide spoke in Spanish but would translate for Kelly and I. The bus was old and unimpressive, but for $30 dollars we were not expecting much more. And as awful as the bus was the view made up for it. The Sacred Valley or the Urubamba Valley is a valley in the Andes of Peru, close to the Inca capital of Cusco and the ancient city of Machu Picchu. The Valley is very futile and a lot of corn is grown here.
Our first stop was Pisac, the Incan ruins here lie atop a hill at the entrance to the valley. The ruins are separated along
the ridge into four groups and the Inca constructed agricultural terraces on the steep hillside, which are still in use today. They created the terraces by hauling richer topsoil by hand from the lower lands. The terraces enabled the production of surplus food, more than would normally be possible at altitudes as high as 11,000 feet. With military, religious, and agricultural structures, the site served at least a triple purpose. Researchers believe that Pisac defended the southern entrance to the Sacred Valley. The site was beautiful, the very top overlooked the entire valley, it was simply breathtaking. It was also very windy and cold but luckily we stayed only for a brief time.
For lunch we stopped at an all you can eat buffet, but unfortunately the old bus combined with the curvy road affected my appetite. Instead I walked about a mile down to the road to a small market and for less than a $1 I got some yummy Peruvian cake, a couple of passion fruit and a diet coke.
After lunch our next stop was Ollantaytambo. Ollantaytambo has some of the oldest continuously-occupied buildings in South America. The temple area is at the top of
steep terracing which helped to provide excellent defenses. Stone used for these buildings was brought from a quarry high up on the opposite side of the Urubamba river - an incredible feat involving the efforts of thousands of workers. The complex was still under construction at the time of the conquest and was never completed. Ollantaytambo is the only place ever to have resisted attacks from the Spanish.
Our next stop was Chinchero, a small Andean Indian village located high up on the windswept plains of Anta at 12,342 feet above sea level. There were beautiful views overlooking the Sacred Valley of the Incas, with the Cordillera Vilcabamba and the snow-capped peak of Salkantay dominating the western horizon. Chinchero is believed to be the mythical birthplace of the rainbow. The village mainly comprises mud brick houses, and locals still go about their business in traditional dress. The village may have been an important town in Inca times. The most striking remnant of this period is the massive stone wall in the main plaza which has ten trapezoidal niches. Also in the main plaza is an adobe colonial church, dating from the early seventeenth century, it was built upon the
foundations of an Inca temple or palace. The ceiling and walls are covered in beautiful floral and religious designs.
Right outside Chinchero we went to a textile “shop” (aka a patio covered with white tents) where we watched local women, dressed in traditional clothes, make dye for the textiles. The textiles are dyed using a variety of plant and animal materials. From cleaning to dyeing to fixing, each phase of the coloring process relies on natural products that have been available for millennia. Raw sheep’s wool is cleaned prior to processing with a natural detergent made from the Jabonera plant. The jabonera root is grated into a bowl of water and produces a thick lather that removes that removes soils from the fiber. When the fibers are dry they are combed into roving, or loose bundles. Before dyeing, the roving is spun into a single-ply yarn. Single-ply spun yarns are dyed in a wide variety of vibrant colors. The dyes are fixed with natural chemicals such as salt, lime, alum, acid, and urine. Eighteen different shades of red are produced from cochineal, also known as carmine. Cochineal is obtained from an insect of the same name, which lives on
cacti. The insects are dried and ground then mixed with water and produces a potent liquid colorant that is also used for the lips. Watching these women work was just fascinating.
Chinchero was out last stop and soon we were on our way back to Cusco. At this point it was 8pm and had been a very long day, also the attitude continued to affect us which didn’t help. For dinner we went to a restaurant we had previously been to but this time we got the famous meat tray. The meat was served in a huge serving tray and it included 2 steaks, 3 kinds of sausage (white, blood, and some gross bluish one), liver, kidneys and some random meat that we were too scared to even try. I am proud to say I tried all the sausages and the liver but after that my stomach could take no more.
We walked around Cusco for our last time that night, tomorrow we travel on to Panama!
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