After a night in the bus we arrive in Cusco, capital of the Incas. Cusco is a town I loved the first time I went. Despite the constant tourism pressure from the locals, this town is still full of charm and beautiful architecture in its centre. Having only a few days to spend in the region we only stayed one day in town. We opted for a free walking tour hoping we would see the principal areas of the town and learn the principal information about it; yet this tour turned out to be of less interest to us as it took us more towards the outskirts of the town and talked more about culture and traditions in Peru.
Built above a river and an old city, Cusco - 3400 high - is a city of Spanish influence due to the colonisation about 500-600 years ago. It is home to the ancient civilisation of Quechuas, where only the leaders were called the Incas. The Inca kingdom spanned from Colombia to Chile (through Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) and was composed of 20 million intelligent people, who sadly were defeated by as little as 168 Spanish conquistadors. |
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After quickly visiting the city we head to the San Pedro market, and for an early diner in order to catch a good night sleep before all the tours that await us this week.
Selecting a restaurant at random close to the hostel we found one of the best restaurant we ever had in this trip!
Selecting a restaurant at random close to the hostel we found one of the best restaurant we ever had in this trip!
Sacred Valley (day 1)
7am, we leave for a private tour with Carlos our local guide, and our two favorite acolytes Rémi and Pauline recently arrived from Puno, to the sacred valley. The landscape was beautiful, driving through a very rich and green valley, with plenty of little traditional villages, tuktuks and houses made of earth. One has to see it to understand the richness of fauna and culture we can feel in the valley.
In one day we visited 5 sites all located in altitude, as Incas used to build their fortress and cities in altitude in order to avoid flooding and house destruction due to rain. The houses are not perfectly straight, these constructions being anti-seismic.
In one day we visited 5 sites all located in altitude, as Incas used to build their fortress and cities in altitude in order to avoid flooding and house destruction due to rain. The houses are not perfectly straight, these constructions being anti-seismic.
Pisaq
In Quechua Pisac means little colibri. The terrace of these constructions are of 2-3m meters high invétérés each level. The usage of these terrace was of course for agriculture but also to avoid landslides. They were used for 3 years and had one year of rest between each culture.
In this city one can find the surprising vertical cementery within the rocks, because they believed that in the mountain are the spirited saints.There are 350 different holes where the dead are in detail position because they believed life was a cycle. |
Ollantaytambo
This inca site was a resting site for the travellers, who used to walk between 15 and 20 km per day, they walked because they didn't believe in using the wheels as it has a rounded shape like the sun and using the wheel would be against their god.
These sites had everything a traveller would need: restaurant, shops and hotel. Between 400 and 600 people lived within the murals of this fortress with 200 steps, which protected them from the other communities coming from the jungle, and know to be cannibals. La ciudad de Ollantaytambo was reconstructed above original inca ruins. Within the fortress 3 different type of rock constructions can be observed, each one being related to the importance of the site. What's really surprising here is that the incas didn't use any type of cement to stick the rocks together. They were simply joined by the perfection of their sizes and shapes. |
Salineras de Maras
This site is a huge salt factory managed by the villagers of Maras. Each parcel belongs to a family of the village.
The salted water comes from an underground river directly from the mountain. Only 10-15cm are needed to fill a parcel, out of which the villagers will collect salt once the water will have evaporated. The average production per year is of 25-30 thousand bags of 50kg. An interesting fact is that during the Ina period they lived a lot off good exchange. And that time coca leaves and salt was worth more than gold or silver. |
Moray
The Moray Inca site of 31.7ha and 3300m high was used as an agricultural lab, testing the resistance of seeds to grow at such an high altitude, but also testing a mixture of seeds to create new type of aliments. They used the different levels of the terraces so that the aliments could acclimaté to the altitude, being grown at a slow pace starting from the lower level where it's warmer to the highest which is comparable to Cusco. Is the seed survived there then it could be used in Cusco by the villagers. The terrace was build from four layers (big rocks, small rocks, sand and earth) so that the ground would not get inundated by rain thanks to the sand which absorbs it.
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Chinchero
This town is known to be the head of the cusco province. We visited this town to see the beautiful inca site and learn more about the tradition shearing of the wool, its colouring (they colour it with natural colours found in the nature from plants and leaves a interesting fact salt enables to change true colour of the wool when freshly made and to fix it) made and weaving of all the clothing and souvenirs. To create a peace of weaved mat they work 4-5 hours per day during 45 days when working with alpaca wool and 35 days for sheep wool.
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Rainbow Mountain (day 2)
One of the reasons I was up to come back to the region was not only to go to Machu Pichu once again but to hike up to the famous coloured mountain. Even though we knew it would be hard we were up for it!
The concept is to walk 8km between 4350 and 5000m to see a majestic view over colourful mountains. And for that to leave at 3am from your hostel as the valley is located 3:30 away from cusco. Well the experience turned out to be disappointing: the guides from the agency were not well organised, the weather was bad an we saw the mountains 1 min, many people didn't see it, and mostly I didn't walk but went up by horse. I hesitate a lot about walking or not, I knew I could do it but at my own pace. And because the guides insisted many time on the fact that we only had 3 hours to make it otherwise we wouldn't be on schedule, then I doubted my capacities to do it within time, knowing that at |
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Isla del sol it took us 3:30 to walk 8km within getting higher than 4000m. So I enjoyed the horse ride (led by locals from close by villages who live off alpacas, sheeps and this kind of tourism a week per month) which enables us to see the mountains a couple of minute before they disappeared within minutes in a thick fog, cloud followed by snow and a lot of cold. I am a bit disappointed of myself because I feel I didn't deserve the hike and the view as I didn't walk, especially when seeing how not that physical of a walk it is, and that in the end everybody took their time as wanted, making us leave later than planed. I wanted to make it and be proud of this effort, maybe another time...!
Thankfully the view over the valley was beautiful all the ride trough, despite the bad weather and very muddy and slippery trail.
Thankfully the view over the valley was beautiful all the ride trough, despite the bad weather and very muddy and slippery trail.
Transport: an overnight bus from Puno to Cusco, about 8 hours ride, it should cost you about 30-40 soles (10€)
Accommodation: a simple bus cheap hostel two blocks fro the San Pedro market, and about 6-7- blocks from the main plaza. We paid 20 soles per night including hot water in the shower, wifi and hot water for tea and coffee. an onsite laundry service is also available for 4 soles per kilo. CasaInn hostel.
F&B: we ate several times at a really good restaurant two blocks from the hostel. The food is of great quality with a nice family service all for a very reasonable price. We drank the best assion fruit juice so far! For 26 soles per person (6,5€) we shared a starter, had each a consequent dish, shared a side dish and a jar of fresh juice. The restaurant is called Urpi (Esquina Hospital y Chaparro).
Activities: you won't have any problems finding tour agencies to help you organise your visits in and out of Cusco. However take time to chose wisely, we booked all our tours with Andean People Tours and were very disapppointed with the very poor service through all tours and inresponsiveness of the agency when we complained about all our issues. Also for the city free tour be sure to ask which part of the city they will make you visit: ours turned out to be outside of town on the subject of local culture (which was something planned on our tour for the next day) and very oriented towards selling stuff to tourist and getting tips. In the end we didn't see neither learned much about this beautiful city...
Accommodation: a simple bus cheap hostel two blocks fro the San Pedro market, and about 6-7- blocks from the main plaza. We paid 20 soles per night including hot water in the shower, wifi and hot water for tea and coffee. an onsite laundry service is also available for 4 soles per kilo. CasaInn hostel.
F&B: we ate several times at a really good restaurant two blocks from the hostel. The food is of great quality with a nice family service all for a very reasonable price. We drank the best assion fruit juice so far! For 26 soles per person (6,5€) we shared a starter, had each a consequent dish, shared a side dish and a jar of fresh juice. The restaurant is called Urpi (Esquina Hospital y Chaparro).
Activities: you won't have any problems finding tour agencies to help you organise your visits in and out of Cusco. However take time to chose wisely, we booked all our tours with Andean People Tours and were very disapppointed with the very poor service through all tours and inresponsiveness of the agency when we complained about all our issues. Also for the city free tour be sure to ask which part of the city they will make you visit: ours turned out to be outside of town on the subject of local culture (which was something planned on our tour for the next day) and very oriented towards selling stuff to tourist and getting tips. In the end we didn't see neither learned much about this beautiful city...