Peru - Cusco, Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley

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Alegria and I arrived bleary eyed at 6am in Cusco and slept a couple of hours before taking an afternoon tour of the Incan ruins around the city. We visited 4 sites which were interesting when explained by the guide but unspectacular compared to another sites in the region.

I was appalled to learn that when the Spanish arrived at Cusco, the "navel" of the Incan empire they systematically set about destroying the Incan temples by using the stone to build their houses and then building Catholic churches on top. Our first stop on the tour was to visit one such place - an unusual fusion of the pragmatic solid granite tessellating block walls of the Incan temple with the colonial cathedral on top.

Two days later I took a tour to the sacred valley and visited a number of other Incan sites, much more impressive than the city ones. The site at Pisac is a citadel strutting high on the side of the valley with three separate connected settlements - for the elite, the priests, and the common folk.

Forming ridges between the settlements rippling down the valley side are terraces used for growing crops. The Incans knew a lot more about farming than the Spanish invaders and made stone terraces. Each terrace bed was graduated from large stones at the bottom to fertile top soil above so that during the rainy season the floods passed through the terraces without washing them away.

Each terrace forms its own microclimate and the Incans used them to experiment with different varieties of crops and produced over 100 varieties of maize and 300+ of potato.

My time in Cusco was blighted by another dose of stomach parasites - this time Giardia. The symptoms weren't too severe but I took a test and was prescribed a particularly potent poison, which left me feeling worse than from the parasites. The next few days I felt pretty weak and unable to enjoy the backpacker nightlife of the city.

The city itself is very beautiful, especially at night when the squares and colonial buildings and churches are lit up. It's also the most touristy place I have been to. There is no other industry here so pretty much every local is involved in extracting money from tourists.

The upside is that the city has a vibrant nightlife with bars and good restaurants (including a number of vegetarian ones - a refreshing change). There is a large number of different things to do by way of tours, and courses such as Spanish, Salsa, cooking. There are many spiritual and alternative healing centres including a yoga ashram. There are also huge varieties of different artisan products to buy - my mother would love it!

The downside is that I am hassled pretty much constantly, it's expensive, and any interactions with the local culture are superficial at best. I went to a Couchsurfing meeting and out of the 20 or so attendees there were only two Peruvians.

I'm advised that this is a quiet time of year as it is the rainy season. I can't imagine how crowded with tourists it must be in the high season! It's been raining every afternoon for at least a few hours but hasn't been enough to spoil any of the activities I have done.

It did, however, affect my trip to Machu Picchu. Originally I was going to make my own way there by bus and walk up to Aguas Calientes - by far the cheapest way of getting there. I discounted this when I heard that recently there were a number of landslides on that route and it took one girl four days to get there by bus!

Many people reach it by taking a trek - such as the famous Inca Trail or the alternative Camino Salkantay. However, it had been raining heavily and the thought of camping for four nights in the pouring rain with poor visibility of the mountains made it an unattractive choice.

The only way of reaching Aguas Calientes at the foot of Machu Picchu without walking is by the expensive train. A monopoly owned by a Chilean company. I was initially opposed to going this route but reluctantly opted for it and was pleased I had made that decision. It was by far the most practical route in the rainy season.

After spending the night at Aguas Calientes I was at the bus stop at 5.15am to catch one of the first buses of the day up to Machu Picchu. I wanted to climb Wayna Picchu, the small mountain at the back of Machu Picchu, as it supposedly gave amazing views of the Incan site and the surrounding valleys. Only 400 people a day are permitted to climb Wayna Picchu so to stand a chance you have to arrive before 6am when the gate opens. You're ticket is then stamped with the permission to climb the mountain and you have a choice of two times later in the day to do it.

When I arrived at the gate there were already hundreds of people queuing to get in. Luckily I still managed to get the permission stamp. The weather at this point was quite sunny so I took the opportunity to take the classic photo and a few others and then sat and waited for my friends (three Brazilians and an Argentinian I met in the hostel). They had opted to walk up from Aguas Calientes to save the $8 bus fare and arrived just in the nick of time to join our preorganised guided tour at 7.45am. When they arrived I was glad that I had taken the bus - they were exhausted from the climb up the steep mountain slope. Unfortunately by the time our tour started the weather had turned cloudy and rainy. By the time the tour had finished and it was my slot to climb Wayna Picchu there was so much rain and cloud that I decided it not worth the effort to climb the mountain!

Something interesting happened when I returned to Cusco. I decided that I'd had enough sightseeing and tour taking and had absolutely no interest in doing anything else. It was probably a combination of sickness, medication, travel fatigue, and the cold rainy weather, and that I've now been on the road for over a year....

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Comments

[Lesley Stableford]

You're right, your mother would love it! It sounds absolutely fantastic xxx