The Sacred Valley

Wednesday Pepe took the 3 of us on a tour of 3 ruins in the Sacred Valley including Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, and Chinchero.

On our way to these sights we first stopped at an animal rescue center. This place is a refuge for wild animals that were either captured and treated poorly or found hurt in the wild. They had a a lot of animals and we even got to go in the cage with 3 condors...they were HUGE! They got so close while playing, we could feel and hear their wings as they hopped and flew around.
The bird is as big as Allison!

After the animal rescue center we traveled down the road to a llama and alpaca farm. Here, we fed and pet the animals and received a demonstration on how they process the alpaca wool with natural dyes and create their masterpieces.

This is my favorite llama!

This was obviously Allison's favorite alpaca...can you see the resemblance?
The dyes for the wool were really neat. They used herbs and stones to create the colors. One stone created a red hue, and depending if it was mixed with salt, lime juice, water, etc. it would change darker or lighter....up to 24 different hues from one color! The natural color is in the red in the dark stone at the bottom of the picture...you can see some of the other hues created from it on the paper cards next to the bowl.
The first ruin we went to this day was Pisaq. It was quite a climb to the top of the mountain, with some sections going straight up and others wrapping around the mountain. This area was a town, with living quarters, nobility section, look out points, ritual centers and many terraces for large agricultural production and an area for grain storage. The terraces are really interesting because the Incas used them as micro-climates to grow their agriculture. Each terrace has a slightly different temperature due to its position on the mountain and each would have contained a different product.

View of Pisaq ruins
Tiers for agriculture
Housing areas of Pisaq
Finally at the top!

After lunch we continued on to more ruins. The second sight of the day was Ollantaytambo which was a strategic military headquarters with views from this side of the mountain, over the whole valley. However, when the Spanish came this was an area that was taken. You can tell that is was taken before the ritual area was completed because 12 ton rocks (already carved) are not yet put in place. Across from this mountain and ruins you can see the only Inca prison we saw. By the way the Incas only had 3 laws: Don't be Lazy, Don't Lie and Don't Steal.

We also ran into a 10-year-old little girl on the hike up and asked if she would sing us a folk song from the local area. She was adorable! The song is about a girl falling in love for the first time and all the new fellings that come along with it.

View from the bottom of Ollantaytambo

One of the several huge rocks that were not put in their final place.
The prison is in the center of the mountain on the left side of this picture. It was put in this location because of its difficult path up and down from the valley.
Half way up!

Our little singer...I especially like her "gracias" at the end :)

The final ruin we went to was Chinchero. The interesting part of this ruin is that it is a Catholic Church built by the Spanish on top of an old Incan Temple. We couldn't take any pictures inside, but took a few outside of the area and the people around.

Cusco-topia :)

Allison, Noah and I arrived in Cusco on Monday morning. The city sits at just over 12,000 ft. above sea level, and we dealt with the altitude quite well, all things considered. Noah and I were both effected by the altitude a little, but it was mainly just fatigue, no stomach issues or headaches which was good. We were instructed to lay low the first day to get acclimated, and did just that, napping until the afternoon and walking around the city before going to dinner at the highest altitude Irish-owned Pub on the planet.
We also learned there is a fine balance between faiths in the culture here. Because the Incas and Peru were conquered by the Spanish, Catholicism was forced on them and continues still today with over 25 Catholic Churches in the city of Cusco. However, many native people still believe in the gods of their ancestors (mainly the sun god and the moon god) and make offerings to this day. The below picture is of the Cathedral closest to our hotel, with a flag on top. Noah thought it was funny to see a "gay pride" flag on top of a church in South America, but upon further knowledge, we now know that it is the city flag for Cusco (they are everywhere).


Allison hooked us up with a personal tour guide that she and Fidel had used during their trip here this past March and we had our first tour with him on Tuesday. He took us on a "city" tour which was really a tour of the surrounding areas in the Cusco region. We went to 4 different sets of ruins including Saqsayhuaman, Pukapukara, Tambomachay and Q'engo.

The first area of ruins we went to (Saqsayhuaman) were very interesting and had a large field in the middle of it dedicated to rituals. This field is still currently used to day for rituals and was the center of the Festival of the Sun celebrations and sacrifices just 2 weeks ago (June 24th....something else important happens on that day as well :) All of the different neighboring areas come to this celebration of the sun god with their best agricultural produce and animals to sacrifice. They each sacrifice a llama by cutting its throat, catching the blood and holding it up for the sun god (....yum). The ruins were very well maintained, as you can see below.

This ruins are amazing, but realizing that they did not yet have the wheel when they built these structures is awe inspiring. Some of the these rocks weigh 12 tons or more and were carried / pulled up the mountain from sources miles away.

The stone we are standing in front of is 70 tons!
These ruins also overlook the city of Cusco.

The second ruins we visited on Tuesday were Pukapukara and during the time of the Incas it was a learning or schooling center. Inca's had great respect for their elders and their teachers. Schooling was more philosophical in nature, based on morals and spiritual learning. This place also served as a look out or observation center. While we were touring we wound up seeing a group of students on a field trip to these ruins as well.
These kids were pretty much like the kids we teach...except they walk to all of their field trips. We kept seeing the same group later in the day...they would walk everywhere in the hot sun while we had the luxury of a car. That would never happen in US schools. Can you imagine the parent complaints if we made our students climb up a mountain all day in the hot sun?

The third ruin that we visited on Tuesday was Tambomachay and was a place of relaxation or a "resort" area for the noble Inca. One of the amazing aspects of Inca construction was their ability to tap underground water sources to make running water for themselves. The area here has great large rock walls that would have been covered in large sheets of gold or silver or copper to help reflect moon light, to create light for the evenings. One fountain at in this area was known as the fertility fountain and young couples drink from it for luck in the future to have kids. We'll let you know if it worked in a few years :)

The entire wall in the middle of this picture would have been covered in gold or silver to reflect the moon.

Drinking from the fountain :)

The fourth ruin we saw was Q'engo, and was my favorite of the entire day. There is a huge rock in the center that a ceremonial area was built into. The Inca people believed greatly in preserving and respecting nature, so they tried to build into or around structures that already existed. This final area we saw was a center dedicated to the moon god. The large rock had the middle carved out and would have also had large sheets of gold and silver on the inside to light it up by reflecting the moon. Besides ceremonies and sacrifices to the moon god, this was also a place used to mummify the noble Incas (Kings etc.) There is a huge rock in the middle that is never exposed to sun and because of that, it is extremely cold to the touch, almost like an ice cube. Bodies could lay on this rock for up to a week with out decomposing before mummification.

This is the back of the rock that was carved into for ceremonies.

This is the side of the rock where you start to see the entrance carved out.

You can see that the Incas even carved the stairs into the large rock, so as not to disturb the natural formation.
Pepe explaining the uses of the inside chambers of the rock.
Inside the rock with Noah and Allie. My hand is on the extremely cold rock where they would perform mummifications.

This short clip shows the inside of the carved out rock. The final view is of the large stone in the center, also shown in the above picture.