Day 4: Sacred Vally Tour

Sunday, February 17, 2013

• Early mass in La Cathedral de Cusco
• Full day bus tour of Sacred Valley, Temple of Sun, Pisac Market, Ollantaytambo & Urubambo Pick up @ 8:00am, Lunch provided typical Peruvian buffet, return by 7:00pm
• Dinner at a restaurant downtown 

The day started at 6:00am once again. Breakfast, after a quick shower, in the dining room. Eggs, scrambled, and toast. Mate de cocoa tea of course. Today we were taking a guided tour of the Sacred Valley. Mama G and Mama R joined us. Osa was already up and at the Sunday mass. We agreed to meet her at the plaza where the tour bus was to pick us up & the cathedral was also right there. (I was not getting up to go to church, call me a horrible person, but 1, I am not Catholic and 2, getting up at 3am for a church service should be considered a crime!)

La Cathedral de Cusco

 Once Chancho found the bus the lady asked if we could switch to a Spanish tour. I vetoed that real quick. I would rather listen to a horrible accent then not understand a word. We boarded the bus, but they informed us that we would have to pay to get into the ruins. We thought we already paid for that when we signed up for the guided tour, but because Chile left our receipt at the hotel, there was no way for us to show that. The bus then took us to another location where they needed to switch buses. (Not sure why) When we tried to board the bus there were not enough seats for all of us. They asked some people to leave. I was frustrated at this point and didn't even want to go, but once the bus started to leave, the tour guide Silvia, apologized and said the company was not great. So off we went to our first stop. We had a brief stop at a scenic overlook to take pictures.

Sheep Crossing

View from Scenic Overlook

 We bought some spices from a local to bring home to my mom. We then stopped in a local village to use the bathrooms and shop their tables. You could take pictures with them and their animals (for a fee). They also brought a bigger bus for us. Continuing on we stopped at the Market Pisac. Every Sunday tourists fill it up and buy fruits/vegetables and local made items. Osa bought place mats, Chile bought a rock (yes, a rock. Nothing special about it.), and Chancho bought keychains for his coworkers. It was really neat to see everything. There were different meats, chickens, cows, intestines, all on the tables to be bought. We had an hour to walk around.

Fresh Fruit/Vegetables

Local Girl

Guinea Pigs waiting to be cooked - like a lobster tank

Woman selling her vegetables

 From there we kept on moving on to our next destination: lunch. We stopped in another town to have a buffet. The food was okay. Not anything I would crave later on. I did try the alpaca, which was stir fried and I enjoyed it so much better. I really liked the fried dough, which was made with squash.

My selections for lunch

Fried Dough

Outside of the buffet

Our next destination was the Incan ruins Ollantaytambo. (Yeah, don't know how to pronounce that correctly.) I paid 70 soles and Chancho paid 40 soles because he is a citizen. These ruins weren't finished because the Spaniards came in and killed the Incans. The temples were left unfinished. The Spaniards then took rocks and brought them back down the mountain. These ruins had a sun dial as well. This was the spot where you could see the "Man in the Mountain" and storage houses. We had to climb up high along the terraces. It was slow going, as we were high up in altitude and it was hard to breathe. We also walked a trail close to the edge of the mountain, which would have led us to another mountain, but we walked down to view the sun dial. The terrain was harder than at Machu Picchu. Chancho did it, even though he was terrified of the height. He later admitted that he had to do it so we wouldn't tease him about it since everyone else made it. It was a great trek. I really enjoyed every moment.

Ollantaytambo Map

The Ruins

"Man in the Mountain" on the left. Storage House to the right.

Looking down from the top of the ruins

Our pathway

Sun Dial

 Back on the bus again to our final destination of Chinchero. We went there to see the weave houses. They demonstrated how they make clothes or really anything out of the alpaca hair/llama hair. Showed us the dyes, which are made from natural materials. i.e. corn, leaves, flowers & even bugs. The bugs found on cactus make a red color (from their blood) which can be used as lipstick (24 hours & kiss proof as the lady said). There we bought a beautiful red blanket made out of adult alpaca hair. It is one of the softest blankets I've ever felt. Some say it's comparable to cashmere. We also purchased 2 clay bulls from a little boy. The blanket was 120 soles and the bulls were 10 soles. The bulls indicate love, strength, health and work. People put them on their roofs to provide them with those things.
The community was celebrating Carnavales, which is the celebration of summer. They decorate a tree with balloons and other items. They then dance around the tree eventually cutting it down if they aren't too drunk. This is the one day of the year when alcohol is allowed in the villages. The kids play with water and silly string. We were allowed to walk through the village and witness all the dancing and music. However, we were told to be careful of thieves. On our way back to the bus we were introduced to a Mayor of a village. It was a father & son. The son would become Mayor if anything were to happen to his father. We also were able to see the highest mountain, Veronica, which has snow on the peak. Our day was complete.

Different seeds

Showing how we get beautiful colors

Dying them different colors

All natural beautiful colors

Mount Veronica

A view of Carnavales celebrations

The Mayor and his son

Dropped off at the plaza again we found a restaurant, Plaza Restaurant Grill, to have dinner. We were able to Facetime with a friend back home for a bit too. We then headed back to the hotel where we sat by a fire and read for a little bit before heading to bed.

Our fire to end the day.