the Sacred Valley of Peru

The Peruvian government has tight control on some tourist sights, requiring people to purchase entry tickets for either a day at 70 soles ($28) for the day or 130 soles for a ten-day pass for about 15 sites and museums in Cusco and region.  On my first visit to the sites just outside of Cusco (see April 6th entry), I chose the ten-day pass and knew I was going to visit at least a couple more sites within that period. 

However with the time taken getting an apartment and finding new biking trails, I realized I had to take a guided tour to make use of a second day before the pass expired. My feelings about tours are mixed. On one hand, I would rather do it myself and go at my own pace, especially by bicycle.  But also, I would rather not be surrounded by tourists, many of whom are clueless to local customs (and subsequently act with embarassing manners), are in my way, and also ask too many questions that take up time from actually checking out the sites. However, since time was running out, I had pack a lot of living and check out four areas in one day. 

Our first stop was actually at a small village to take a bathroom break and purchase textiles, playing cards, pens, and other village artisanal products. While waiting for the bathroom, I spied this weird looking potato on the left. (Peru has 500 and counting varieties of potatoes, though this number keeps rising with every tour.)

Having a guide wasn´t bad. I actually learn stuff as opposed to staring at stuff and making my own conclusions.  The above ornament is placed on roofs of houses by Peruvians who want to guard against spirits.

Our first real stop was in the town of Pisac to do more shopping at the town´s market. It´s a sprawling area lined with jewelry, textiles, clothing and souvenirs ( I bought an Incan bottle opener)... unfortunately, we are talking about five different types of stores and each segment is represented by more than twenty venders selling the same items (the earlier stop was a representation of this whole market).  For instance, within eyeshot of one alley, there are fifteen venders with chess sets each with handpainted pieces of Spanish conquistadors and Incan people, side by side of each other. However, no one had a single domino set! I would pay $10 for a simple wooden domino set with handpainted dots.

Pisac

there was a baker that had a wood oven in the market that was dishing out hot cheese and onion empanadas and roasted cuy (see below) 

a restaurant (separate from the above wood oven empanada shop), thought it was a good idea to raise a little extra money by making this cute farm for these guinea pigs and ask people to make a donation to take pictures.  However, I believe that this restaurant was going to make dinner out them when the time was right.

 If San Francisco roads were wider and the bike lanes were wider, I would consider getting a bike like these.

From Pisac, we climbed about 1000 meters via bus to the Pisac ruins. It is here that they had an astrology and astronomy hut (my guide used both words, but I think he meant one of the two) to determine the best times for harvesting.  

The layers along the hill were for separating crops - corn, potatoes, others...

The holes seen here are excavated Incan tombs - raided by the Spanish conquistadors.

there´s honey in these mountains!

After Pisac, we made a lunch stop at a Peruvian buffet. It had potential, but our tour bus was basically being followed by two other tour busses and we arrived at the buffet at the same time. As a result, there was a major line and the restaurant was ill-prepared to handle sixty-to-eighty people at once. I was able to get some fried salmon (or at least it was pink and tasted like salmon).

Our next stop was one that I was kinda excited about - Ollantaytambo.  This was the one Incan stronghold that was able to resist Pizarro´s conquistadors, mainly because it sat high above the town.

If you look long enough, you will notice that this is a profile of a face (squinted eye, squat nose and smirk of a smile) carved into the mountain. On the summer solstice, the sun will pierce through the eye (or at least that is what I think my guide said)

 overlooking the town of Ollantaytambo

 cactus fruit

now that´s a cleavage!

 no doubt a truck carrying bikes from a bike touring agency

The following pictures are from the town of Chinchero.  The tour was overplanned and we entered this town at sunset. There are churches that would be worth visiting, however since we were late, they were closed and besides, my tour guide said photos were prohibited. 

The one saving grace of this stop was that I got to see how fabrics are dyed naturally. Indigo is indiginous to Peru, by the way. The woman would shred some sorta root vegetable and mix it with hot water and dip some white fabric strands into it and out would come orange fibers. Even mold found on a cactus produces a color, but I missed what colour.