Cusco and the Sacred Valley

We arrived in Cusco, Peru on 5 October. We have not lost a lot of height here as Cusco is 3,399 m (11,152 ft) above sea level so we are still struggling to adapt to being without so much oxygen..Here we are going to a Spanish language school for three weeks. We are also staying with a Peruvian family Herman and Isobel who do not speak English. Mary from the United States is also staying with our family. She is here for three months to improve her Spanish as she already speaks very well. She helps with some of the translation when we don't understand although this probably means we are don't learn as much.

Now we go to school everyday Monday to Friday from 9am to 1pm to learn Spanish and we even have homework to do each day. Plus we practise speaking with our family. While my Spanish is improving I still have a long way to go to be able to be understood.

It has been quite cold here and the houses do not have heating so I am glad to have all my thermals. Even though the rainy season is not meant to arrive until December we have had rain daily either in the morning or the afternoon and sometimes even hail and thunderstorms. Everyone tells us this is unusual.

Cusco's biggest industry is tourism. Even though we are not here in the high tourist season there are tourists everywhere. We all come here to see the ruins built by the Inca empire which abound in and around this city. Plus this is the gateway to the most famous Inka city Machu Picchu. The city of Cusco was founded by the Inca's when it conquered the area in the 1400's. They built the city so solidly that is has survived earthquakes and other natural disasters over the years. In 1532 the Spanish arrived in Cusco and set about plundering the city. The Inca's resisted Spanish rule but were eventually defeated. 

Our first sight of Peru

Festival in the Plaza de Armas (Central square), Cusco

 The best ruins in Cusco is Sacsayhuaman (sounds like sexy woman in English). The Inca's started buidling this site in 1440 and it took one hundred years to complete. The stone blocks weigh more than 300 tons and some came from as far away as 30 km.. For the Inca's this was an important religious centre as well as a fortress and was the site of a major battle between the Inca's and the Spanish conquistadors.

Sacsayhuaman and the city of Cuso in the background

During our first week in Cusco we visited a wildlife refuge. This is a place where wild animals are taken because they have been used as pets and mistreated. We were told by the volunteers that work there that while there are no laws against animal cruelty in Peru the police will come and take the animals if someone makes a complaint. At the refuge we saw tortoises (well we saw their backsides as they were trying to hide under rocks). vicuña  alpacas, condors, macaw parrots, coati, guinea fowl, venado (like a deer), very large ducks and a very strange dog that has no hair called Perro Peruano (Peruvian dog)

Macaw

Perro Peruano 

Condor

On our first weekend in Cusco we visited the Sacred Valley. Juliette (from the United Kingdom), Haney (from Holland), Hans Pieter and Bridgette (from Switzerland) joined us. We caught the local Collective (mini van) for just a few dollars to get to the small towns in the valley and visit the Inca ruins. This was a  bargain after we had been quoted US$150 each for a day tour of the area. 

Our first stop was Pisac. This town is best known for its Incan ruins built in the 1400's which lie on top of a steep hill. They were used by the Inca's for military, religious and agricultural purposes. Surrounding the ruins on the step hillsides are terraces the Inca's built to grow crops. They even hauled topsoil from the valley below to put in these terraces. The terraces enabled the production of surplus food, more than would normally be possible at altitudes as high as 3350 m (11,000 feet). . The ruins are extensive and Juliette, Hans Pieter, Bridgette and I spent four hours walking around them. Sue and Haney took a taxi and hired a guide who played traditional music on a flute in between telling them about the history of the site.

Pisac Inca ruins

Our next stop was Ollantaytambo which is at the other end of the valley (about one and a half hours from Pisac). This is another town which has Inca ruins. During the Inca empire, Ollantaytambo was the royal estate of the Inca Emperor Pachacuti who conquered the region and built the town as well as a religious

centre and fortress. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Cusco this fortress served as a base of resistance led by Manco Inca Yupanqui which successfully pushed back a Spanish led invasion. But this was only a temporary success as the Inca civilisation was eventually defeated by the Spanish who became the new colonial masters in South America

At Ollantaytambo we stayed in a very cheap hostel costing about NZ$7 each. It was so cheap that the balcony to get to the bedrooms had holes in it large enough to see the ground below. I was not too sure how long it would survive. The blankets and even the sheets did not smell too clean, there was no hot water despite being told we could have "hot" showers and the toilets were not the best I have seen. However everyone took it in their stride and we all managed to get a good night's sleep despite the state of the hostel and the next morning we were up bright and early to visit the ruins.

Ollantaytambo Inca ruins

View of the Sacred Valley from the Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo

From Ollantaytambo we went to visit more Inca ruins at Moray. the ruins here consist of two large terraced circular depressions, the largest of which is about 30 m (98 ft) deep. Between the top and bottom terraces there is a temperature difference of as much as15 °C (27 °F). One theory is that this large temperature difference was used by the Inca to study the effects of different climatic conditions on crops.

Moray

 Our last stop was a visit to the La Salineras (salt ponds). Here salt is harvested since pre-Inca times by evaporating salty water from local local spring water with a very high salt content. This water is directed into a system of channels that feed the several hundred small terraced ponds that have been created. Families of the local community are given the rights to harvest the salt.

Families harvesting salt at La Salineras 

After visiting all these ruins we arrived back in Cusco on Sunday evening to a home cooked meal with our Peruvian family. Next weekend we will be visiting one of the seven wonders of the world when we go to see the Inca city of Machu Picchu.