Leaving Cusco for the Sacred Valley

Thursday, February 18, 2010

We left Cusco this morning via a narrow mountain road that contains many hairpin turns up and down the moutain. It should be a thirty minute drive to Pisac, but the bridge is washed out from the recent rain and mudslides (the reason we cannot get to Machu Picchu as well) so it was about a two hour drive. On the way, we stopped to sample bread made in a dome shaped clay oven. Today was a perfect example of the changeable Andean weather – beautiful and sunny one minute and raining and chilly the next minute.

Pisac is a typical Incan town with houses high in the mountains and terraced land for agriculture. The site is carpeted with many beautiful and colorful wildflowers, including lupine, gladiolas, dahlia, and daisies. To explore the site, you walk on very narrow and steep paths where the mountain is on one side and there is a sheer drop off on the other. There is an unfinished temple to the sun with a large stone that would have been used for a sundial, an area where the women of the sun would have lived and done their fine weaving, and many storage areas for food. On one face of the mountain are burial niches where mummies would have been placed. The Incans removed the organs from the bodies and stuffed them with cotton, alpaca fur, and herbs. They were placed in a fetal position and allowed to mummify – sometimes by smoking them and sometimes through a “freeze dried” like process. The bodies were placed in baskets and wrapped in fine woven cloths. They were then placed in the niches and the people interacted with them. Like all Incan towns, the buildings are made of stones that are fitted together and there was running water in the town and for irrigation. The views of the surrounding mountains and terraced land are gorgeous.

After stopping for lunch, we explored Ollantaytambo, an Incan town that is still populated today. The original Incan walls can be seen the façades of the houses and the narrow stone streets still have the water and sewage canals from Incan times. The town is in the valley and the mountain face contains lots of steep narrow steps to climb up. There are the agricultural terraces, storage rooms, and temple of the sun areas on the mountain top. The views are amazing and it is incredible to imagine that this town has been continuously inhabited since the 7th century.

As darkness fell, we arrived at our lovely hotel, Sol & Luna with individual “huts” and nicely landscaped grounds. The dinner included Peruvian local dishes including alpaca and cuy (guinea pig). Jon sampled the cuy and apparently it tastes like duck.

Interesting Fact: Incan agriculture was very advanced. There were people who studied what to plant and where. There were over 5,000 types of potatoes grown. Other crops included corn of every color and many different sized cobs and kernels, beans, grains, tomatoes, cotton (yes, even before the Spanish) and fruits.