The Sacred Valley - Cusco

 

We got to lie-in until 7.30am, MIRACLE!! The bus picked us up from the hotel and we ewre off to the sacred valley for the day. It spans roughly 300km and contains many Inka sites.

We visited a small community where the women weave the native clothes and blankets etc. It was amazing to see how little these peole have, the shacks they live in and yet to observe how content they were. There was a group of children playing marbles in one corner, and they were so excited by it all!
From there we went to see the difference between Llama's and Alpaca's and all started feeling a little guilty for eating Alpaca the night before, but it was gorgeous!! These are the animals the locals get most of their wool from. They don't use much sheep wool in their clothing as Alpaca is much softer and warmer.

The Inca site of Pisac awaited us and altho amazing, was nowhere near the scale of Machu Picchu, but it still had plenty of bloody steps and my thighs were not at all happy about this!!! But we had the promise of a beautiful lunch in a fabuloius Hacienda to keep us going. After lunch we went to another Inca site, but this one was truely facinating because there is still a town here and the locals have incorporated some of the Inca stone work into their own houses. The streets are still the original ones constructed by the Inka's and the water system is also the original one!! This town is called Ollantaytambo.

On the journey back to Cusco we stopped in a local brewery to taste Andean beer, called Chicha, which is made from the different varieties of corn in the area. I didn't really like it, but at least I tried it. We stayed there for nearly an hour playing "Toads", a game where you throw coins at a table which has slots in it and each slot has a different value, the toads mouth being the highest. Great fun!And so ended our time in Cusco.