Cuzco and the Sacred Valley

Due to the high volume of photos and video that was produced during the past week, we here at Peaks and Pitfalls have decided to divide the adventures into 3 parts. This will be the first, which talks about sacred valley, then we'll move onto Machu Picchu, and then Puno and Juli. Now that that has been settled, we (Myself, Malu, Joe, my Mother in Law *suegra*, my 6 year old brother in law Mauricio, and my wife's grandmother- Mama Yoli) left Arequipa on Monday night and slept all night on the bus. It is about 9 hours to Cuzco from Arequipa, and they even gave us a small meal of meat and rice. Not too shabby. When we arrived at Cuzco, we went to our Hotel, which was nice and located in the PERFECT spot. About a half a block off of the main plaza. It was called the "Inti Wasi", and it costs about 50 bucks a night for a double. This is pretty pricey for Cuzco, and I have stayed in other places for as little as 10 bucks a night. That being said, the location and the niceness of the hotel easily justified the price. Did I mention that they served a respectable breakfast? They do.
It also had a sweet view of the Plaza de Regocijo (Square of Rejoicing).
Like this:

From the Hotel, we checked out the town a bit. I bought a few patches for my fav Backpack ever, which you can check out HERE. They come about 2 for 5 soles, or about a buck apiece. I got a US flag and a Machu Picchu patch. We then went to lunch at a place about a block away from Plaza de Armas called "Kusi Kuy". They serve typical food, and do a dang fine job. I was impressed with the restaurant because they didn't take forever to serve us, the food was good, and it wasn't ridiculously expensive. It was a little above average price wise, but you're not going to find anything cheaper and better as close to the main plaza. Malu and I took a risk and spent 18 soles on a fried trout in lemon. I am sorry that I didn't take a picture, but it was awesome. 18 soles comes out to be about 7 bucks, so not too bad at all. If you ever want to go to that restaurant while in Cuzco, it's located on Calle Suecia 339, about half a block due north off of the Plaza de Armas. You can find out more about it HERE.

After lunch we embarked on the City Tour Which I've written about before, I don't know where, but I'm sure it was somewhere in either this blog or my other one. This time around, I figured I'd throw up a COMPLETE photo of each attraction, and my opinions of each.

Coricancha

The first stop on the City Tour is the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, which is also known as Coricancha, or Inti Cancha, or The Temple of the Sun. This was the most important religious center of the Inca Empire, and when the Spanish came in they did what they usually did: that is to say, they destroyed and pillaged as many physical symbols of the prior civilization/religion and replaced it with their own. Therefore, where the Temple of the Sun once sat, now there is a big Catholic church that was built on the remains of the Incan walls that weren't quite torn down all the way. Our tour guide sucked, unfortunately, and he was terrible slow and gave painstakingly long explanations of the names of things, but way more then you wanted to hear. He skipped over lots of cool legends, cultural tidbits, and other interesting historical facts to belabor the various names and how incorrect they all are today from what they probably were. This was something he did at each site, which was aggravating, but luckily, I've been through the tour twice before and so I mostly wandered around taking pictures. His English wasn't super clear, so some of the more interesting things, I also translated for Joe. Coricancha is an interesting place to visit, but in my opinion, quite boring a third time through.

Sacsayhuaman

After seeing the church, we cruised on up the hill to Sacsayhuaman. It was pretty chilly and windy, and it seems like every time I go to a new site, they have more and more stuff roped off. My first trip through, we could crawl all over the place and see interesting stuff. Now most of the walls are closed off. It really bums me out that the snake stone (which was significant if you understand Incan religion) is on the top and people can't even go up to see it. The last time I went here, I went to the north side where there are some groovy tunnels and some interesting circular terraces. This time, our guide was super fome (a Chilean slang word for lame/boring), as mentioned, and so we kind of just ambled through the middle in a bored fashion.

Tambomachay

The next stop on the city tour was Tambomachay, which is a cool fountain. There are some springs that feed it and run through a series of aqua-ducts. According to previous, not lame guides, the water comes from some source that has yet to be located. Anyway, they are pretty good. When I went there with Malu, we were told that to drink the waters would make a women fertile. Malu took a drink, so yikes to that. Nowadays, the fountain is roped off, no touching. It's a bummer, no more women are going to get fertilization boosts from the Incan fountain. :(... I guess.

Pucapucara


This was an old Incan fort, and I like it for some reason. Maybe because it's really close to the road, and you can snag some really quick pictures that usually look pretty sweet. In any event, it's a stop on the trail from Cuzco to the sacred Valley and it's quaint.

Qqenko

I am not a huge fan on Qqenko as a spot. This is probably because every time I've been there, it has been the last stop on the tour and almost dark, which isn't conducive to good pictures. It has a small caveish area that you walk through and look at an alter that may or may not have involved human sacrifices: no one really knows. There is a throne carved out of the rock that I got a picture in the first time I went there, and guess what? Yep. Roped off. I had Mauricio take a picture of me in it this time anyway just because I felt like I needed to do something to stick it to the "man". Take that.

Pisaq


The next day we embarked on what is called the "Sacred Valley Tour". Here is a photo of the sacred valley from the entrance along the road:


Soon after reaching the Sacred Valley, you go around a mountain, and on the backside lies Pisaq. I like Pisaq, there is a long walk and some steep cliffs, which makes for breath taking vistas and fun walking. When my parents came here, I thought they might croak because of the elevation and the effort. They soldiered through and happily lived to tell the tale. This time, I assume because of heavy rain, we didn't go all the way around the mountain on a long trail but rather disembarked from the buses a lot farther up and a lot closer to some cool ruins I'd never seen before. It was an enjoyable difference, although I was confused most of the time until towards the end when Malu told me we were a lot farther up than on previous trips. Pisaq is a lot of terraced mountain and some cool stonework where the Quechuas lived (the proper term for the population that we refer to as Incas, because only the rulers were Incas).

Ollantaytambo

Ollanytaytambo is the coolest stop short of Machu Pichhu. Lots of stairs, lots of terraces, lots of stone ruins, and also nice views. This was the last place the Inca/Quechas retreated to before the Spanish finished subjugating them. Here is what is considered the last living Inca/Quecha village, a place where they still live and the layout of the town hasn't changed since it was built. It is laid out in the shape of a corn cob, and each block is called a "cancha", or kernel (also a common term for roasted corn kernels). There is the place where you catch the train to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of the mountain that has Machu Picchu on top of it.
While we were there, at Ollantaytambo, I got a picture of this paper blossom on a stick.

This indicates a place where "Chicha" is sold. Chicha is a beer made out of purple corn. I obviously have never sampled it, but the locals seem to like it... in copious amounts. We were stuck waiting in Ollantaytambo for 4 hours while we waited for our train to Aguas Calientes, so we wandered around. Joe and I found a guy that makes amazing pottery, but it cost like 150 dollars a piece, so we scampered from there. We ate dinner there, a pizza that was ok, and occupied the restaurant with our stuff until it was time to leave.

Chincheros


The tour continues on to a place called Chincheros, which is another Catholic Church built on top of some ruins, but it's not all that exciting. The best thing about Chincheros is that the artisan things are pretty cheap compared to the other locales.

Also during the trip was a stop at a town called Urubamba for lunch. It was a buffet, and I was REALLY disappointed with the whole affair. It's a one time through the line type of thing and they really rip you if you want anything to drink. I wouldn't recommend it. It was included with the tour package that we got. Previous trips through I always just ate empanadas and stuff, and if you have the choice, save your 20 soles that the buffet costs and just take something to eat. In any event, here's a picture of my plate:

The meatballs were something decent, but the piece of meat was not so great. Also, the pepper looking thing is Cuzco's version of Rocoto Relleno... and it sucks. It was pretty nasty, the Arequipa is vastly better. The last thing was a piece of breaded chicken, and it was ok. Desserts were dry cake, and they ran out of both kinds before half the people went to get some. That's right, they ran out... at a buffet. Like I said, save your money and eat something else.

Well, that's a pretty fair account of that. This took me forever to write,(mostly editing the photos) so don't be alarmed if the Machu Picchu post doesn't appear for a few days. I'm sorry I lied last time, as you have undoubtedly realized, this isn't the Machu Picchu post that I promised. Next time for certain. I know that there weren't many people in the pictures for this post, so here are two closing photos. One of yours truly and the cutest girl ever, and one of the merry band that went gallivanting all over the Altiplano.