6th July 2013 - meet the group at 8:30am we departed for our day trip through the Scared valley of the Incas today. We have a local guide that will be with us for the next few days and has an incredible knowledge of the local area and inca and even pre inca culture. We made our first stop about 45 mins outside of Cosco at and Alpaca and Lima farm. We saw dozen of different types of the animals and even one that had a Lama mother and Alpaca father. They had a variety of different colours and hair types. We then drove to Pisco and visited a site of An Inca civilization. They had large terraces cut into the side of the mountains on which they farmed, corn, potatoes and beans. They also had a complex system of bring water from the underground spring and steam into the city. There are many storage and drying houses to preserve the crops for years. The crop harvest was divided into 3. One part of the King, one part of the gods and one part for the people. They had many temples and idols that they prayed to and made sacrifices to also. It was amazing to see the way they had built such impressive stone structures and used no mortar just cut the enormous stones to fit together. They also had to haul the stone from quarry some distance up the hill to be used. When the spent some time in the town of Pisco and the market and did a little shopping. Drove for around 45 minutes and then stopped for lunch and a fantastic buffet restaurant. They had some many salads which isn't always easy to find here as there diet is based heavily in carbs and some meat. Very little fresh vegetables is served.
When then drove to Ollantaytambo which has an altitude of 2600m. Here is another large Inca civilization and town. They had again built large terraces for farming on the side of the mountain that shadows over the current town. They didn't finish the town and there were large pink granite blocks weighing hundreds of tons that had been moved from a nearby quarry by hand. It is assumed that they were using them to built a large temple but the Spanish destroyed the carvings that had been made on the stones as they didn't like the local religion of various gods and ideals instead went about introducing catholism. On a mountain nearby you could see where a large face had been craved into the rock face. The water supply for this town come from a large high mountain lake a few mountains away and they built complex channel and tunnel system to bring the water to the people. There was also a temple for the sun god that had been built so that on the sunrise of the winter soltice is shone through a window and lined up with the water foundation inside the temple. After this is was time to head to guest house for tonight. We had some a free time to relax and use wifi , before heading out for dinner with the group. We walked into the town and just had a very light dinner as we were all so full from lunch still. Walked into the main square and looked around before heading back via the shop to pick up some snacks for tomorrow.