The Sacred Valley

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So, the famed Inca Trail was all booked up for the month and next, we took a look at the alternative trips, and decided in the end to just make our own Inca Trail adventure.
Starting in Cusco in the early morning we grabbed a collectivo (one of those minivans they pack full of locals) to the town of Pisaq in the Sacred Valley. There they had a great sunday market going on and a huge tourist market you could easily get lost in (which we mostly avoided). Climbing up the hill behind the market are a whole whack of Inca ruins that we were able to see once the ticket guy realized the peruvian entrance prices were a bit rediculous and gave us a 3 for 1 offer. It was quite a hike to the ruins, but we made it and really enjoyed the huge views of the valleys and mountains.

Once off the hill back into the town, we jumped into another collectivo to the town of Urubumba, where we had to make a hasty change into another collectivo to Ollantaytamba. Here´s where the fun starts. The plan was to catch a bus from Ollantaytambo to Santa Maria, but apparently the bus only comes about twice a day, is usually full and no one really knows what time it will get there. Gotta love it!!

Luckily in the square there were 5 spanish travellers who were in the same position as us. After a bit of discussion, they called a guy and organized to get a van to take us to Santa Maria for 6 pm-ish, and I mean ish!!

That gave us some time to explore the ruins there, where we were able to sneek in the back entrance...shhhhhhhhh!!

The bus finally pulled up and in we piled, it was dark by then. What we didn´t know is that to get to Santa Maria, you have to drive over this mountain pass around 4300 meters. Winding our way around all the switch backs in the dark mountainside, the van started to have some troubles which ended the journey somewhere halfway up the hill. After some more discussion, it was concluded that we needed to push the van around and coast down the hill and try to get back to Ollantaytambo.

To make a long story short, there ended up being lots of van pushing, it started to pour down rain like nothin else just as we got back to town, the only place we could eat totally sucked and we managed to find a hostel that would take us all in. Fortunately the company was able to send us another van at 6 am (actually 7am peruvian time) the next morning, which got us to Santa Maria without a hitch.

From Santa Maria, we split up with the spaniards and grabbed another collectivo to Santa Rosa or the start of the trail to Santa Teresa. It was a splendid journey on this trail that at first hugged the mountainside above the river and later turned into a splendid jungle trail, with parrots flying around and all the other wonders of the rainforest. The best part of it all was the trail ended at this hot springs resort!! Oh yeah that was awesome!!!!

To end this chapter, I´ll just have to say, the journey through the valley has been awesome, tiring, and aching, but tomorrow morning we make the early rise and hike to machu pichu, before finishing our Inca Trail journey.

I´ll throw some pics up soon, just have to find a dang computer that can handle a task like that.

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