Today we did a Sacred Valley Tour with 9 others people. Our first stop was a market where Beth bought a scarf and had a picture taken with 2 llamas and an alpaca.
Next stop was impressive ruins at Pisaq. There were holes in the mountain that were ancient tombs. He larger the tomb, the more important the person buried there. The view from up top looked down on a beautiful valley surrounded by ancient terraces where the farmers grew their crops.
The group broke for lunch at “Incalicous”. Three people in the group will be joining us on the Inca trail tomorrow (Eric & Haley from St Louis and Tatiana from Russia).
Last stop was the traditional village of Ollantaytambo. We climbed steep steps amongst the terraces. These were the original stones from 5000 years ago. Some were as large as 8 meters by 4 meters and they were rolled from a high mountain about 5 miles away. It is astonishing when you think of the work involved. There were amazing panoramic views but it was a pretty gray day so the pictures don’t do them justice. If you look carefully at the third picture below you can see the face of the Incan God carved into the side of the mountain.
Ollantaytambo is a small city with very narrow roads. Because of this the taxis are tricycles.
For dinner, Tom had Alpaca Ravioli (Yes, that’s 4 days of eating Alpaca) and Beth had trout.
We will be in the jungle for the next 4 days and won’t be able to update this site until then. Our guide for the day (Martin, pictured below) told us that when he was a young man he ran the entire Inca trail in 5.5 hours. He said the record was 3 hours. The record is safe for the next 4 days.
The face in the rock is really cool. Looks great, cant wait to see you!