My Travels in: Peru Part 2

I adopted the motto "the more you try and plan a vacation, the less control you have over it" after finishing my first back packing trip. I applied this to my adventure in Peru, hopped onto a friend's hiking plan, and left it at that.

After my first day walking around Cusco, which was actually part of my "plan" since I needed to adjust to the altitude, it began to dawn on me just how far I'd gone in the opposite direction on the planning scale. While I spent weeks preparing for South East Asia, I had five days planned out of my two week stay in Cusco, which were planned by other people! To remedy the situation, I came to both a long and short term solution. Long term being, screw my motto, short term, find a tourism agency and get myself some day trips planned.

On my walk back to the hotel on the second day, I popped into a random tourism agency and sat down to discuss my options for the day and a half free that I had until my friends arrived. Ten minutes later I walked out with a full day tour of the Sacred Valley including Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Chinchero, and a half day tour of Moray and the Salineras.

Around 10am the next morning we rolled into Pisac. Rolling in with us came the rain. I talked with my tour guide and he said it was a coin flip whether the weather would be bright and sunny or icy cold rain. It appeared we'd lost the coin flip. As much as I try and have a positive outlook, sight seeing on a cold rainy day where clouds blanket everything there is to see sucks.

We huddled in our rain jackets as our guide quickly explained the historical site Pisac. He asked if we'd like to spend time exploring the area but everyone opted to head  back to the bus. Luckily, this was the lowest point in the entire trip, and the weather improved immensely from that point forward.

  

The tour consisted of lunch and the place we stopped at was charging almost $17! I knew there had to be somewhere else to eat so I walked back out the door, across the street, and got a three course meal for less than $2. One of the great perks of speaking Spanish.

The rain continued but at a continuously decreasing pace. People were still walking  around with their ridiculous plastic ponchos as we headed into Ollantaytombo.

 This is one of the many amazing things that the Incas did. This is a food storage place that's high up in the mountains where it's cold and the food can be preserved.

 Rain jacket traffic jam!

  

 The Incas were really good at stacking stones. From what I've gathered, special structures got rocks that were smoothed down and fit together almost perfectly without mortar.

 When the Catholic church arrived, they set up right on top of Inca buildings. Good thing they didn't go after Machu Picchu sites.

This was a pretty interesting place we stopped in between historical sites. Yarn is made from alpaca hair. It's spun together, then braided, and then using various methods, given color. The craziest color was red which involved picking off a bug from a cactus, mushing it and using its blood to dye the yarn.

Using various additives, like salt, many shades of each color can be made, as seen here.

 Picture of those various additives.

This is the Salineras, known as salt mines in English. Water flowing out of the mountains enters these pools. Evaporation occurs over a period of time, and eventually the salt is scooped out.

 The technology of the Incas continued to amaze me throughout the entire trip. These were farm lands and they are spread everywhere throughout the countryside. The amazing thing about this area is that plants of warmer climates could grow here since they used the rocks heated during the day to keep the plants warm during the night.

 Stairs were just rocks sticking out of the walls.

 View from the top of Moray

We stopped in between historical sites to visit a collection of souvenir shops. This lady was working on making a traditional quilt in the center of the shops.

I thought it was rather comical that people showed up to Cusco were not prepared for the cold, myself included. This usually meant shopping for clothing. This woman here went full out and a bit over the top in my opinion.