The girls left very early this morning to start the Trek, so quiet not having Jessie-Mae around (& Laura popping in every 5mins or pretty much living in our room).
I also had an early start for a day tour to the Sacred Valley. The bus was full & the guide was very enthusiastic with fairly good english. First stop was at some local markets just outside Cuzco, next we went to Pisac ruins which is absolutely stunning & my favourite ruins so far although apparently it's nothing compared to Machu Picchu which I can totally believe. As we got to Pisac it started to drizzle but it made for good photos as the mountains were surrounded by mist & made it look even more mysterious. Pisac has two sets of ruins, the main one & another one to protect people getting at the main one. In between them is a mountain full of terraces that are still in great condition. You can see the terraces in the top picture.
Karen, Pieter (the Belgiums) & I climbed the main ruins. The guide said it takes 5mins, he lied! It was more like 20 & it was all uphill stairs which when you're at approx 4000m altitude it wasn't an easy stroll. Once we got to the top it was so worth it though, the view was magnificent & the ruins were in such good condition. On the way back to the bus Pieter got asked for a photo with some Peruvian girls, guess they haven't seen many white guys 6'4. I told him that he should've asked for a coin like they do to us when we take their photo!
Next stop was Pisac markets, so nice to see different souvenirs etc to what we've been seeing in Cuzco. I picked up a couple of little things, cotton bag, coin purse for a couple of dollars each & a silver charm to put on my bracelet. Funniest thing was we walked into a proper shop & there was no shop keeper, just a random llama!!! He was the cutest little llama, very shaggy & curious. He came right up to Karen & I to sniff us & check us out. Check out the photo on facebook.
For lunch we were taken to a restaurant for buffet lunch but it was PEN35 / $14 which is a lot for South America so we walked across the road & found this little garden restaurant which had entrée, main & drink for PEN10/$4, now that's more like it. Luckily Karen can speak Spanish as the waitress didn't speak any english & lately we've just been ordering like a lucky dip.
Next stop was Ollantaytambo, more ruins but this it is terraced all the way to the top and you have to climb the stairs to reach the top, Pisac was nothing compared to getting to the top of this one. Mainly because the stairs were almost never ending, uneven/different height stairs & there was just so many people trying to go up & down the same set of stairs. Again once you got to the top it was well worth it. The bottom left picture was taken from the top. We could see the train in the distance which was headed to Machu Picchu & more ruins on the other side of the mountain but we didn't go to those ones as the path is really uneven & not very wide & it had been raining so would be even more slippery.
More scenery stops along the way but this one had some cute donkeys, lambs & a couple of girls in traditional dress. Could't help but take a photo of them.
Last stop was Chinchero, surprise surprise, more stairs & massive paths to climb to get to the top. From here you could see snow capped Andes! All the way up to the top were ladies trying to sell you things. First time I've found them to harass you walking by & not wanting to take no for an answer.
At the top was a massive courtyard & the church & of course stunning views down over the valley & terraces. By the time we left here it was dark & very cold, lucky I had my llama jumper to keep me warm. (That's the purple jumper you can see me wearing in this pic).
By the time we got back to Cuzco we had been out for almost 12hrs & were knackered. We were dropped off on the other end of the town but thankfully we kind of knew our way back to the main square & back to the hotel.
We ran into a couple of people from our tour who were on their way to the pub but we were too knackered so we opted for an empanada & a piece of pie from a bakery near our hotel & got an early night.
Tomorrow a free day for me to enjoy by myself.