Another private van. Today we travelled to Ollyantatambo which is where we will leave from the Inca trail tomorrow. All very exciting. But on the way there we had a few stops. Firstly had a look at the Jesus statue Cristo Blanco  It was gifted to Cusco from the Palestinians for helping them when they needed it. It also has a great view of the city. Here we could see why Cusco airport is so had to land in, some flights get turned around just because the pilot fails. It is sandwiched in the middle of the city and has an extremely short runway.

Then had a look at the Sacsayhuaman archeological site. There were some massive stones. Some weigh up to 100 tonnes. it's incredible to think how the hell the managed to move the things. Let alone build all the stone walls. So many of the Inca buildings are centre around the sun. It was such an important part of there life and still is. On the 21st of June there is a big celebrations called Inti Raymi, the suns feast.It's all about fire, water and sacrifice of animals.  A llama will be killed and the heart and liver taken out straight away. The priest will use these organs to predict what the coming agriculture season will be like. Apparently it's about 98% accurate.

Whlist driving along we noticed lots of coloured houses. Patricia explained that the most common brick to build houses is called adobe bricks it is made from Andean grass and clay and last 5 years. Some of the houses even collapse if it rains a lot but it is the cheapest brick. The mayor of the towns loaned money to the people to build concrete houses. To symbolize that the person has a loan the houses are painted red, blue, green or yellow. When the loan is paid off they will change the color so everyone knows. We also saw a lot of houses with a bull and cow on the top of the roof with a cross in between. These are given to a couple who are newlyweds when the community builds a house for them. It is for protection, fertility and happiness.

We stopped at a town called Qorqor (Older men snoring - in Kichwa) . Peru has three national languages, Spanish, Quechua and Aymara.  The community of women who run the tourist visits are called the flower women Munay Tika(beautiful flower) group. Here we got to wear the traditional dress, then helped collect some potatoes (Lisa local sour potatoes) and  returned to a beautiful lunch prepared by the woman. It included:

Lisa local sour potatoes.

Lupinus seeds cream with small square diced potatoes.

Quinua soup

Wild spinach hot salad with diced potatoes

Torreja corn tortillas.

Carrot cake.

All of it was so yum!

Finally the ladies got all their craft work and showed us the process it takes to weave a table runner. It can take over a month just to make one. So of course I had to buy one along with a little hand bag. It was kind of gross to learn that they change the colour of the dyes by adding lime juice or urine.

Carried on to Ollyantatambo.  This town is 80% made up of what the Inca built. It even has the aqueducts still running through the streets (only used to wash cars now though).

Above the town in the hills is the Ollantaytambo archeological site. It is thought that this area was a look out to control who went into the Sacred Valley.