Tuesday 18 September 2012
HOTEL MUNAY TIKA
AVE: FERROCARRIL 118
OLLANTAYTAMBO - PERU
TEL (51-84) 204 111
Greg received birthday wishes from the girls, since it's the 18th in Aus. He doesn't mind celebrating 2 days! On the way to Ollantaytambo Wendy and Joanne from Melbourne were with us on the bus plus a lovely couple from Pennsylvania. On the way we stopped at Pisaq at a market. Greg bought me a silver nugget! Later we ran into the Italian honeymooners we met in Galapagos! Small world. The Sacred Valley is 90kms long and a wide fertile valley split by the Urubamba River. Beautiful. Corn grows as far as you can see, and this was the power of the Inca - corn and land. Ollantaytambo is a lovely town at 2850m. We went straight to climb the inca terraces behind the town. A great view from the top. For the first time our accommodation is a bit below par but at least we're warm and clean and close to the train station. Next morning we went with guide (just us again) and walked for 2.5horas from 4400m to 3000m along an inca trail along Lares pass. Breathtaking! Crisp fresh air, blue sky, we watched farmers tilling soil by hand and donkey and Llama. The trail went by a river that fed into the Urubamba that eventually flows to the Amazon. We're amazed by the number of blue gum and eucalyptus (that arrived around 1930). At Tortura on the way back I gave two sisters a bundle of colored pencils. They were pretty happy. The Inca cleverly rocked retaining walls by the river's edge to stop erosion and built channels across the trail so water flowed. In our car on the way back we saw the sight of the day - 4 on a bike! Dad driving holding little boy and mum on the back sidesaddle holding baby! Another quirky thing - the guide told Greg about a tree falling and killing children. Sad. He wasn't sure of the number - 2 or 3 and then he said it was more than 2 and less than 3!
Day two - a free day. First thing we asked if we could use our tickets to climb the terraces again and look further. She said 'yes'! So glad we did. I think we're turning into mountain goats! The Inca erected buildings high high up a mountain to store corn etc where insects couldn't get to it.
Later, because we hadn't had enough climbing, we caught a taxi to Moray (an amazing circular terraced area that is thought where Inca experimented with agriculture). Each terrace has zig zag stone steps to climb down and up. Over 3000m high here there are wheat fields and sheep too. Next we went to the salt mine, a naturally occurring outcrop of salt. The salt water is harvested in pools created by the workers. See photos. Well for a free day there was an awful lot of steps, but we're doing fine and Powerade helps!