Cuscu 2 The tours! - Sacred Valley

 We had another tour the next day- the Sacred Valley. this time we were picked up at the arranged time and all went very well and we had an excellent guide who treated us as intellectual equals, told us lots of information and managed to establish a relationship with everyone on the tour - perhaps the best guide we had in Peru (Karen -that's you if you are out there reading this!)
Our first stop was an artesanal market where the shopping continued (but we just looked -eyeing up stuff for later). Here we also encountered our first, up close and personal, alpacas -albeit baby ones specifically on view for photos - I took a couple but first had to wait about 20 minutes (we had 30 in total!) for a young Japanese couple who tried every pose in the book -some of which I think they could be arrested for in some countries!- while I tried my first whole (c/w leaves) boiled corn from a stall.

cute!

not cute!

After the market it was time for another market but only after a rather thrilling bus journey. This market at Pisac (not to be confused with the later pisac near Chiclayo) was actually a good one and we spent a little money there (the first item being being a giant empanada each!)


When we stopped here, the guide warned everyone that we were keeping strict time and that we only had 45 minutes before moving on to the site at Pisac. ! hour later and we were still waiting for the two Brazilians on the tour when Karen nipped off and came back one minute later and told the driver to go. We left the Brazilians behind! (the one minute was to tell the other guides to carry them to the next stop if they arrived)

variety of creatures and ...(you know what comes next!)

From here came a winding uphill journey to the Pisac ruins. The first sight of these was when the eye was drawn uphill by amazing terraces that streched the full distance from the road up to the ruins. When we got there the site was something really worth seeing. It stretched on up the hill and we were able to wander at will (Will always gets it! - sorry!) in and out of these roofless buildings clinging precariously to the mountain. On the site was also a complex drainage and aqeduct system which begs the question why the same complexity cannot be maintained in many places a thousand years later!

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more steps

oops! wrong turn!

Lunch came next! Quite a lot of running (?) about can work up quite an appetite! (in Peru make sure you take your appetite with you as the portions are immense  and full of carbs and it's quite likely that you'll develop Peruvian belly i.e. an extra wobbly bit at the front of your stomach - most people have got one - including ourselves! esp after northern Peru) This was definitely a positive - Pisco Sour included!

Then, fully loaded , we set off for Ollantaytambo. This town is where later we would catch our train for Aguas Calientes/Machu Picchu however it was now the place where we would do most climbing while at altitude - on a (very) full stomach! The whole site again was extremely impressive and was fully appreciated once our lungs had  returned to full function and our heads had stopped spinning.

The view from the top was breathtaking (not that we had much left!) and then it started raining, sooo... we had to make our way down these very steep steps which were now very slippy. Oh! the fun we had!!

It's a long way up!

the iconic back mountain

large sculpture of Inca face...or is it Eric Cantona??

we were told that every Inca site displayed duality. The female where everything happened- and the male represented by the mountain behind every main area

couple ready for sacrifice (can't face anymore steps!)

It's a long way down!

The final stop was at a village about 4,000 metres high for... a demonstration of weaving! Actually this was a worthwhile stop, if only for the innuendo and wit of the local indigenous representative who was all of 15 years old (also called Karen). It mainly concerned a back strap loom but also the variety of dyeing processes. It lasted for about 45 minutes before we were invited to take photos and ....buy a few things!

hey! you're supposd to be watching me!

Karen on the left

Altogether a very good day out. Karen the guide was brilliant and the group were a lot of the people we had met the previous day and were able to have a lot of conversations (mainly in English) with a variety of people, the most interesting of which were Venezuelan, one of whom was an ex TEFL teacher!