Adventure #9 peru Day 3 Sacred Valley

Woke up with a headache -- (I'm just pretty much going to cut and paste this sentence into each day's post!).  Every day though, it went away a little faster. 

Today was the Sacred Valley Tour.  It was myself, Jake, Dane, a couple from Texas and our guide MarcAnthony.  There were supposed to be three other ladies, but apparently they had a BIG party the night before! LOL!

Our Sacred Valley tour included a stop at a small market, the Pisac Inca Ruins, lunch, the Ollantaytambo ruins, and then the town of Chincheros.

Before we left I went for a little walk to get some fresh air -- and as much oxygen as possible!
This is the street my hotel was on.

The main square in Cusco



The morning rush!





Kids headed for school!







This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip.  I just thought she was beautiful with all of her flowers for sale!

Then we loaded up onto the van and headed out for a full day of being tourists!  Many of these pics are from inside the van, so not the best quality.



A morning gathering



The first of many beautiful mountain views!

Our first stop was at this small market.  We were promised many shopping opportunities later on in the day, so we just stopped here for some pictures and a bathroom break.  I love the colors at the markets, and the mountains seem to grow right out of the market's thatched roof!



Many of these little taxis all over Peru.  Our guide says "cheap, but not safe!"





Dane and Jake from Alaska



Then we got back into the van and headed to the Pisca Ruins.  More beautiful views along the way:

PISCA INCA RUINS



Yes, we are headed up there!



  

OK, so I thought this was really interesting.  Peru is full of ruins everywhere -- not just at specific tourist sites, but everywhere!  In many cases people live amongst the ruins and terraces.  The terraces are all over the place.  I had always thought that they were just cut into the mountains to provide flat steps to grow things on.  Actually, the Incas built the walls, and then specifically filled them in with layers which provided the best soil to plant in!  Very cool!

These niches were for the gold statues, or idols



Dane and Jake telling me to keep climbing!





Made it to the top!



I got lost getting out of these ruins and heading back down.  It was like a maze.  I felt like I was in JFK airport all over again!



Interesting combination of foliage




Look how little the people look!




I love this pic of our guide, MarcAnthony.  Looks like he should be on a "Come to Peru" ad!




Yep we climbed all the way up there!




OK, so check out these holes in the mountain across from the ruins.  They are basically "cave graves".  These holes are where the nobility were buried -- mummified, in fetal position since the belief was that they would be "reborn" agin after death, often buried with gold idols, and mummified animals.  It is so interesting to me how many similarities there are between different religions that stood alone and had not been cross-influenced yet.   The Incan's believed in an underworld, represented by the snake, the world they lived in represented by the Puma (strength), and the heavens - represented by the Condor.  They wanted to be as high as they could, to be close to the heavens.  (Something I was not so happy about later in the week when I climbed the Inca trail!  The valleys woyld have been much easier LOL!).  Also, they lived by three simple rules.  Don't be lazy, don't steal and don't lie.  Not a bad set of "commandments".  So many similarities to Christianity -- way before the Spanish showed up!

Here's Jake with a great view in the background!

Now it was time to head to lunch!



Local High School students mark their school's name into the side of the mountains



waterfall

Most homes were painted with political campaign messages



Our lunch spot



Lunchtime - figuring out the difference between real and fake coins

The plastic bag story:  There is a local beer made out of fermented corn called "Chicha".  Many people make it and sell it out of their homes.  A red plastic bag outside of a building means "you can purchase Chicha here".  However, our guide told us you have to be careful, because different color bags mean different things.  A yellow bag means that food is also served.  A blue bag means you can also find "single people of either sex" -- a nice way of saying it's a brothel.  We saw one building with all three colors -- made in to a flower.  The guide called that place "a buffet"!  LOL!  There is one more color -- green.  Not quite sure how that works, but it means "wife is home, but husband is not".  I saw one geen bag.  I only got a picture of a red one though, see below:

Being a pharmacist, I had to take a picture of a drugstore;

Then we were on to the next ruins.

  OLLANTAYTAMBO RUINS



Yep, we are headed up there too!  And the "trek" part of the trip hasn't even started yet!





These girls wanted their picture taken with the Texans



This whole town is built on the ruins -- just build up a little, and add a roof!



Can you see the face of the Inca God?



How did they do this?  You can't even get a piece of paper in there!



Look at the size of these rocks.  They were brought here by the Incas from a rock quarry...




...8 miles away, on the other side of that mountain! 



a storage building



look closely.. the original Starbucks!!  Inca Bucks!



Last part of the trip now.  We are on our way to the town of Chincheros!

As in many S. American countries, there are friendly stray dogs everywhere!



More high schhol "graffiti"!



As we drove up, up, up, we got into the plains.

                                                  CHINCHEROS

• 

These 2 bulls with a cross were on the top of almost everyone's house.  Apparently they are for good luck, and a blessing on the house.  The bulls also represent power.  The cross says "a Christian family lives here".  This is supposedly better than any insurance policy against the "bad lawyers".  I'm not really sure what that means, but I bought a replica for a souvenier (mine is just dark brown, not fancy like the one in this picture).



Two young girls enjoying the sun



The Spanish built on top of the Incan ruins here.  There was a beautiful, funky church, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside.

We got to visit a little shop where women cleaned, spun, dyed, and wove alpaca, and sheep wool.  Items made out of Baby Alpaca wool are very desired.  The joke is that at most markets, you aren't really getting "Baby Alpaca", you are getting "Maybe Alpaca".

They said that these girls can spin yarn while cooking, cleaning, taking care of children, and even can give their husbands a kiss and not stop spinning!

Another tea that helps with the altitude.  The plant is called something that sounds like "Moonya"



She grated a root that then made soap suds to clean the wool with, because "the Alpacas do not take showers"!





She asked for 2 male volunteers. uh-oh!





Then she rubbed something in her hands that made a bright red paste. She said they not only used it do dye wool, but also for lipstick!



Watch out Dane!



The Peruvian kiss!  What we found out later is that the thing she smushed in her hand to get that color is a tiny gray parasite that lives on the prickly pear cactus!  Yuck!



Then after a long day, it was time to head back to Cusco!

The police pull people over quite often just to check paperwork.  We never had any problems, but I snuck a picture to add to the atmosphere of the trip album!

Back in Cuscos, we had an orientation meeting to prepare us for the the trek that we would be on over the next 4 days.  There were 15 in our group all together.  Quite a few people from Australia.  There were only 4 girls, and two were there with boyfriends.  So Annie from Australia and I determined that we must be tentmates.  I had told Dane and Jake about the restaurant I had been to the night before and they wanted to try it.  So after orientation, Dane, Jake, Annie, Joe (also from Australia, but from the opposite coast from Annie) and I all walked over to Greens and had a great dinner. 

Dane and Jake from Alaska at dinner

Joe and Annie -- both from Australia!

After dinner, it was early to bed as we had to meet in the square at 5:20am for the next chapter of our adventure:  the 4 day Inca Trail trek!