Sacred Valley, Peru

Alpaca grazing in the Andes

Since we're taking our time in Cusco we did a day trip to the Sacred Valley. We weren't sure if it was going to be worth it because we already booked our four day Lares trek to Machu Picchu. Really, who wants to see more ancient ruins? We asked a few people and heard it was actually quite different and well worth it. And yes, they were right. Although I would recommend not doing the tour. Our dorm mate had a better deal, she somehow met someone by chance who knew a taxi driver that hooked them up and drove them around all day for free. That is my ideal way of visiting anything really; they're not trying to sell you anything, you take your own pace, and you get personal service. Lucky.

Incan family dressed up for tourists

The worst part about any tour is when they make their stops at the tourists spots where they get their kick backs or what not. So one of the first places we were supposed to visit was the Pisac ruins. We stopped in the village of Pisac and they said to get off the bus for 30 minutes. We did and walked around, looking for the ruins, getting lost in the tourist stalls. We come back and then they say now we're going to the ruins. I hate tours.

We ran into this family of Incans. Since I wanted to take their picture, we tipped them a little. This is after Stephanie stopped saying how cute the little lamb was. As we walked back to the bus I saw another five more families dolled up in their traditional clothes, carrying little lambs or alpacas, and holding a baby on their backs. All of them came up and asked for money. It kind of made me sad how people rely on tourism to make a living.

Terraces at the top of Incan Pisca ruins.

I believe the Peruvians pride them selves in how many different varieties of corn they produce. On the way up to the Pisac ruins we picked some up and it was crazy good. Each kernel was like a little plump potato. I've never seen kernels so big. The cool thing about this place was that we could spot the terraces from far far away as the bus drove around the mountains. These agricultural terraces they created allowed them to produce an abundant amount of crops which I imagine would have been hard at this altitude. That's probably why they have such a great selection of corn.

[Unimportant side note: So our tour of Pisac was done and we were ready to move onto the next site. After getting on the bus we realized two of our people from the group were missing. We had our own personal time to explore the site and then we were supposed to meet up at a certain location at a certain time. Thirty minutes pass, other members are getting impatient, they start to yell at the tour guide. Some had good reason because they were catching a train at the next site. After some bickering and another twenty minutes pass, it's decided that the bus leaves with out them. I don't exactly know what happened but they show up at the next site where we had lunch, and the tour guide wanted it on record that the entire group decided to move on with out them because people had to catch a train. So he wrote out the facts and wanted the people to sign it. The couple that showed up late grabbed the paper, crumpled it up, and threw it out the moving bus. The bus driver stops. I thought a fight was about to break out. Sorry for the anti-climax, but nothing ends up happening and Stephanie and I write down the facts on a strip of paper from my guide book and have everyone else sign it but them and hand it to the tour guide later.]

Standing ontop of Ollantaytambo ruins [Photo Cred: Steph]

Getting to our second to last and coolest place was this ruin. Ollantaytambo. It was the last resistance of the Incas against the Spanish Conquistadors. Every view from this place was scenic. Even if not the view from it, the ruins them selves were amazing. There were these giant stones which looked as big or possibly even bigger than the stones used in the Pyramids. It must have taken an amazing amount of man power to move some of these giant stones.