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Published: February 1st 2007
Firstly, quick viewing tip for this one. As there are so many pictures, we would suggest clicking a picture to bring it up in a seperate window, and flicking through the pictures as you read the text seperatly. So on with the entry.......
We arrived in Cusco - one of the main destinations on everyone´s South American itinery. Sadly we soon discovered that this is exactly what the old Inka capital city has become - a tourist hive. Accomodation cost doubled and did not even closely reach the standard of what we were used to. The only upside about the room we found was that it had cable TV. Now cable in South American can mean only one thing, the El Gourmet Channel (sad eh?! for those who don´t know, this is a non stop cooking TV) ! It was time for quick decisions. We had traveled here with our new buddy Casey we had met in Arequipa. It is amazing how fast you can become good friends with someone and Casey was one of those peope. We quickly agreed to spend the next day exploring the Sacred Valley and as our taxi driver/guide (Victor) who drove us from the
Inka Street
Chinchero:
Original and very steep, huff.... puff...bus station was very kind, he got the job. He also had possibly the fanciest taxi in Cusco which meant we would be traveling in relative style. We all agreed on a price of US$60 for a full day trip, for which we could go where ever we wanted and stop where ever. This isn´t too bad we didn´t think, possibly towards the top end but we got a comfortable car, a reliable driver, and the freedom to follow our noses and not that one of a stressful tour guide. On top of that we had to add 70 Soles each for the Tourist Bolleto (gringo tax), but that is not a patch on Machu Pichu, more of that one later!
So we had the rest of the day to ourselves, catching up with sleep that we did not get on the overnight bus, finding something to eat and finally exploring Cusco. We found what must have been the best deal in Cusco for lunch, 3 courses of decent food for 10 soles. Now in a town that is purely for tourists this is a real steal! As we have found on our journey, the lunchtime special menus are
the thing to go for, limited choice but great value for money. To our surprise we bumped into our Colca Canyon Chilian gang, but they were at the end of their stay in Cusco and leaving the town for Bolivia the next day. After a quick chat with them in Spanglish (we put our new found langauge skills to good use) we found out they thought the same as us, Cusco es muy caro (it is very expensive). Eventually, we turned down various offers from countless street sellers and went for an early night to be ready for the historic sites.
After a good night sleep in what must be the coldest room in the whole of Cusco, we got up for our 8am rendezvous with Victor. Much to our relief he turned up as arranged, all smiles and greetings. We had a long day of Inka chasing ahead of us so we set off to our first site on our route.
Chinchero The first site had a church on it which we visited first. Apparently this place was an Inka temple until the Spanish came along and knocked it all down. This was going to be
a common theme for the day. In this case, they had used the foundations and plonked a church on top, a very literal statement of the conquered empire and the oppressed, indigenous people. The church was quite elaboratly painted inside with an enormeous golden altar at the front. As with all churches it had quite a somber feel to it.
After this quick visit to the church, we moved onto the more interesting Inka Ruins. Even with most of them demolished, you get a feel of how impressive they would once have been. The stonework here is truely amazing, with the seemingly random shaped blocks perfectly joined together, all worked by hand. You will not be able to push a single sheet of paper inbetween the stones, so perfectly fitted they are. Particularaly impressive at this site was the terracing work, both on the site and across the valleys in the distance. The terraces are still worked on the oposite hills, and these were created by the Inka's several hundred years ago. It is unbelivable how much work has gone into the terracing which allows them to steal only a few meters of usable land from the steep sides.
Also on the site, there are the remains of some old storehouses. Again from the ruins you get a sense of their purpose and scale. A good view is always guaranteed from the Inka throne, where the ruler had a great overview of all the events. All in all an impressive start to the tour. On the way back to the car, we noticed the other gringos arriving for the day, and the sellers which were nowhere to be seen before, had suddenly come out of hiding. We were privelaged here to have the place mostly to ourselves.
A Brief Interlude On the way to our next scheduled stop, we passed a bustling market. This is where having your own driver really showed its worth as we asked him to stop for us to look. Now this was a truely bustling local market, with not a gringo in site. It was quite an intimidating mixture of noise, colour, movement and smell but a real glimpse into the life of the people in this region. It was mostly a food market with a wide array of ingredients, vegetables, grains and prepared foods on offer. The place was also a
View across fields to lake
This random beauty was on the way between sites. livestock market which probably gave us the most interesting experience. The livestock was sold on stalls (poultry and rabbits/ cuy) and the larger livestock was sold in a big ring in the centre. The sight of a twiching sack with a pig in will stay with us forever, as it was both bizzare and a world away from our packaged supermarket lives in the West. Also of comedy note was the baby in the pen full of chicks, we wanted to ask how much the kid was, but figured they wouldn´t see the funny side of it. Josie parted from the market with her usual buy of random food sample. This time it was Tamales, a sweet snack made from Mazie, packed in the mazie leaf, pretty tasty and super filling. The other thing that became apparent was, how small the peruvian people were. Even Josie´s head stuck out and that not only because of her ginger hair.
Ollantaytambo Next site was home to a massive Inka temple. Again, terracing is abundant here, as it is at most of the sites. Scale here is impressive and also the quality of the workmanship. You are greeted by a vast
The hills are alive....
....with the sound of llama set of terraces which lead high into the sky. We slowly climbed up the steps to reach the site, which at this kind of altitude is far harder than normal. You rapidy run out of breath and have to stop frequently, or at least we did 😊 Once at the top of the terraces it becomes clear this is a temple and place of importance due to the size of stones used and also the fine workmanship on them. How they did this all by hand and with only primative tools is really baffling.
On top of the slope there was a seat which we can only imagine was another kind of throne. The view from here was again truely astonishing, and well, made you feel like a true king. Sitting on the throne you can see across the whole town and to the grainstores and lookout on the valley infront. You really got a sense of power and being ruler of the whole land. Josie especially liked it here, and sat for some time, surveying her now kingdom and subjects below. All hail Queen Joanna!!!!
Walking around on top we also saw part of the original Inka
trail on the hillside. We are not sure if this forms part of what they now sell as the "Inka Trail Trek" but we walked it, and it is original, so in our eyes, we did the Inka Trail (argue if you dare!).
Another highlight from up here, apart from the obvious beauty of the ruins and the fine Inka handywork, was Andy living out a childhood fantasy. As a kid he used to watch a cartoon series called Mysterious Cities of Gold (google it if you don't know), about a boys quest to find the Cities of Gold. It was set in this part of the world, and in similar settings, so he indulged himself with a bit of re-enactment (see photo). After chilling (or rather boiling) here for a while, we got back in our trusty car and headed off to the next place.
Pisac After ascending high into the hills, we finally reached our stop of Pisac. The last section to get here was very steep and Victor risked his mighty steed to get us here, both ourselves and the car made it in one piece, much to everyones relief. We could see right
away that this place was really something, as it is a complete city. By complete we mean it has a fort, argrictulture area, storage for food and wares, a spiritual/ religious centre and an inca graveyard. This place has everything Machu Pichu has, and more, it is just spread out more and not as compact, so Victor explained. It also isn´t in as perfect condition as, you guessed it, the Spanish where here and wrecked bits.
On this occasion Victor decided to come for a walk with us over the ruins and give us a guided tour. It was really interesting to hear the history from him (in Spanish naturally), and he gave life to the place. We began in the store areas which have curved walls to help them withstand earthquakes. It clearly works too, as they are still here a few hundred years later. Next we walked on across the site with Victor, across the Inka Trail (once again) and through a hand cut tunnel to a lookout/ control tower. Again, the impressive stonework was on display everywhere, and you get a real sense of how the town was planned and what it must have been like
to live here. Victor also explained to us the temple which had separate sections for the Moon and the Sun. Especially the sun, so he explained, was "put to bed" in a little ceremony every evening. Locked away the inkas made sure the sun would "be there" the next day when they opened the gates to let it out. Victor left us here to go and get the car and drive down to the bottom, leaving us about 20mins to walk down through the ruins and across the terraces. Once again we were lucky to have Victor as a driver as most of them are too lazy to walk and so drop you at the bottom of the Pisac site. If this was all you saw you would be missing 50% of the place, so if you ever happen to visit here, demand to be taken to the top of the ruins and walk down. The walk down was really nice and refreshing after our enormeous lunch. As we hit the bottom Victor hadn´t quite got there, and the black clouds started to roll on in. It was just starting to lash it down when Victor in his silver steed
The holes are for gold idols
Ollantaytambo:
... all robbed and melted down by the spanish. showed up and rescued us from a soaking, good work.
Tambomachay Ruins number 4 of the day had to be something special to beat Pisac, and well, they didn´t. Spectuacular but small is the water temple here, the main feature being the spring water which runs down from a source somewhere in the mountains. Apparently it is super pure as it comes right from the source, Casey (and his iron stomach) confirmed it was clean by tasting, but after our shitting experience, we decided to refrain and take his word for it. Once again this place would have been much more impressive in Inka times as it was once home to a set of lifesize, solid gold statues. Now all that is left are the holes in which they once stood. Now, you are going to think we have something against the Spannish, but we are just telling it how it is. Yes..... the Spannish came and nicked the statues and probably melted them down into something far less spectacular than a lifesize Inka statue, but hey, we will never know.
Q´enqo It was getting toward the end of the day once we got here,
Casey on guard in the doorway
Ollantaytambo:
If your names not down, your not comming in. and the curse of the tourbus finally caught up with us. We had been sooooo lucky for the rest of the day to more or less have the ruins to ourselves. This one was a completely different story, as we approached it we saw about 5 buses all parked, then on turning a corner another 3 or so. The whole site was swaming with tourists, all walking in an orderly line around the ruins in a kinda one way thing. Now, we are tourists too, so I mean what can we expect, we had found a herd of our own kind, but it somewhat ruined the experience to see only tourists and not the rocks we had come to see. The main attraction here was an altar cut into an underground cave, which we quickly peeked at and then promptly got back into the taxi and left again. So not much to report from this one, I don´t think we missed much anyhow.
Onto our final stop for the day!
Saqsaywaman Ok, so our last stop for the day was the most sacred of all the Inka temples. There are 2 theories on the shape of this
Andy and Josie in their rightfull place
Ollantaytambo:
This amazing view if from the throne of the Inka. Just imagine sitting here surveying your kingdom, smug in the knowledge, YOU RULE! place and why it was built as it was. First, is that the zig-zig pattern of the walls here represents lightning bolts from the sky. Second theory is that they are in the shape of the teeth of a Puma. Why a Puma? Well, they say that Cusco was built in the shape of a Puma and that this place is it´s teeth. Also, they say that the whole Inka empire formed a shape of a human body and Cusco happened to be the bellybutton, that is why it is often referred to as "the navel of the world".
The ruins as they stand today are still very impressive, but they are apparently only 20% of what was there orignially. You can guess who ruined the rest of it by now, and they used it to build the churches in Cusco, so we are told. The site has a massive circular section which used to be a reservoir for water, but is now empty. The site also contains a section of tunnel which is about 8m long and totally pitch black. Worth going in there, but best with someone who knows the place to avoid a concusion from the
Massive stones of the temple
Ollantaytambo:
A truely huge stone, finely carved square with a geometric patern on the face. low hanging rocks. Andy had the pleasure of meeting about 15 clueless tourists comming in the other direction who just stood there unhelpfully instead of backing up the 2m to the end of the tunnel and letting him out. Instead he stood on most of their feet and smashed his knee on a rock, bonus. There are apparently more tunnel sections to this site undergound, but these are now closed due to a few deaths, with people getting stuck down there whilst searching for lost tresures. The next section of the site is the throne of the Inka himself. The high rocks all around the unasuming rock throne where smooth and polished. It looks like water had once run over the rocks to smooth them, but Victor told us that it was in fact the hands of thousands of children and juveniles that had smoothed them. It wasn´t all fun and giggles in the Inka empire it seems and there was a far amount of harsh treatment by todays standards.
The final and most impressive section of this site, are the massive zig-zag walls, made of huge stones. As it is the most sacred of sites, the stonework is
Andy has an Esteban Moment
Ollantaytambo:
ahhh ahh ahh ahh, Some day we will find the Cities Of Gold.
Reliving a childhood fantasy here, high above the Andes, classic the finest and the rocks the biggest. The photos probably show this as they dwarf the people standing next to them. As the sun was setting at this point the site took on a more etherial feeling. We rushed to the top to see the sun setting over Cusco, saying goodnight to the gringos below for another day, probably being locked away to rise again the next day. The view over Cusco from here is amazing and worth comming for alone.
Tired, we slowly walked back to Victor´s car to return to Cusco and finish the tour. We had had an amazing day, and mostly had the sites to ourselves which really makes for a spectacular tour. As hypocritical as it is, being toursits ourselves, to see a place crawling with tourists like ants on a doughnut really spoils it, as all you can see are cameras and baseball caps and not the beauty of the site itself. Which brings us nicely onto the Machu Picchu dilemma
The Machu Picchu Dilemma Now, you may ask, why the hell didn´t you go to the ¨Main Attraction¨of Peru, if not South America. WELL it is like this..... we made
our decision based on several reasons.
Firstly, the cost issue, they wanted $US100 per person for the train, bus and entry to the site itself. This in itself isn´t an issue as we had the money, but it is a bloody lot of cash to see a pile of stones on a hill. Would we have paid this much to go and see a castle at home, which is probably older and better preserved, no. To add to the money issue, Victor told us that only 25% of this money goes to Cusco itself, which means even less probably goes into the upkeep of Machu Picchu for future generations to enjoy. In our eyes, this isn´t right, as we would expect our cash to go to a more worthy cause. Also on the issue of money, if we were Peruano it would cost us 30 soles for the train and not $US68. Yes, we are more wealthy, but the cost difference is many times more.
Secondly, and more importantly, to arrive at the site on a train with 500 other toursits would have somewhat detracted from the experience. To trek and have 4 days of pain and effort to
Josie on the Inka Trail
Ollantaytambo:
Original Inka Trail at that. get here would make it a much more magical experience. Unfortunately, with our butts and tummies still recovering from Arequipa we did not feel ready for such an exhaustion. Who knows, someday we may come back and do this, so why spoil the surprise. Our experience at Q´enqo of a ruin swarming with tourists somewhat put us off as well.
Finally, we had seen so may wonderfull sites on our day tour with Victor, we decided it would just be another site, and we probably wouldn´t appreciate it.
So there, we didn´t follow the crowd and go to Machu Picchu, but we saw some spectacular things all the same, and we feel we didn´t miss out. Perhaps some day, we will return, who knows. Onward and Upward to Puno!!!!!
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Dave the canuck
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You didn`t go to Machu Pichu!!!!????
Hello Ginger Nuts. You{er buddy Dave here. I am in the Lima airport on my way to Ayacucho, staying overnight and bored out of my mind, so decided to see what you were up to. I just did the Sacred Valley tour yesterday ... pretty amazing huh? I got suckered ... I signed up for the 4 day Machu Pichu tour in March. You{re right ... Cusco is damn expensive compared to Arequipa ... I think we did wise and went to school there ... so much cheaper, and you don{t have to say `No thanks`to massage people every 10 steps. Keep in touch, and email me personally (I don{t know if this gets published automatically ... if so, YOU GUYS SUCK! he he he )