Dias 9 y 10

As a first piece of good news, I found one outlet and one position for my computer that will allow it to charge and be happy. I can't move it for the next three weeks, but I think I'll make that sacrifice.


On Saturday (07.17.10) we all woke up to leave the hostal at 8:45 AM for a city tour. We first stopped at Qorikancha, which means Temple of the Sun. In its prime, it was the most important temple in the Incan Empire. The church of Santo Domingo was built on top of the ruins after the Spanish conquered the Incans. Now it is a museum and beneath the lawn in front of it is an arqueological site.



This is a view from La Av. del Sol. When you walk inside, there are displays explaining the historical aspects of the Incan temple, while there are giant oil paintings describing biblical scenes. There's also a large:



courtyard in the middle. When you walk out to the balcony, it overlooks the whole city.



And here's a group picture. We're all pretty cute.



Afterwards, we took a tour of the Cathedral of Santo Domingo in La Plaza de Armas. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but the outside is pretty nice:



The Cathedral was built on top of an Incan palace that the Spanish destroyed when they arrived in Cusco in the 16th century. Inside there are some amazing altars and artwork, but photography was strictly prohibida, so I'll leave that up to your imagination.

Afterwards, we took a bus up the mountain to



Saqsaywaman.

Saqsaywaman is an arqueological site with ruins that date back to between 900 and 1200 AD. They are thought to be built by the Killke people, who occupied Cusco before the Inca people.

When you climb up:



the ruins, you can get a pretty amazing view of the city:



On the other side of the giant field of ruins, there are these giant rocks that are smooth enough to:



slide down. This little kid really had the hang of it, because he kept licking his palms to help slow himself down, and he was really flying (face first into gravel at the bottom).

Also at Saqsaywaman are these complex underground tunnels that are pitch black, really tight, and have jagged rock walls. They connect to other sites around Cusco.

Afterwards we went to Qenqo, another arqueological site that is though to have been an cerememonial ampitheater. You can walk through the stones like hallways.



It rained a little while we were there, and we were all really exhausted, so we didn't spend a huge amount of time there.

Instead, we headed off to Tampumachay, a where there was the ceremonial worshipping of water.



We basically walked up a giant hill to these stone aqueducts and canals. At this point all we wanted to do was go home and eat lunch, so we got back on the bus and headed back toward the hostal around 1:30 or 2:00 PM.

The next day, we woke up bright and early to head to the Pisac ruins (in Pisac), which is located in the Sacred Valley along the Urubamba River. Along the way, we stopped at a llama farm, where we saw:



real llamas/alpacas and:



fake llamas/alpacas.

They told us the difference between the two, but it was in Spanish so I didn't really get it, and was more importantly feeding the giant monsters.

Then we drove to the ruins where we first saw:



the terraces.

These terraces were designed to be used to grow a variety of different crops at different altitudes. The heartier crops were on the higher terraces in the colder weather, and other crops were near the bottom in the warmer temperatures.

Then we climbed up the hillside through the ruins.



We didn't have too much time there, because we had to go to the GREATEST RESTAURANT EVER. It was a tourist restaurant in the middle of no where; an oasis in the Andes if you will. The food in Peru can pretty much be boiled down to rice, potatoes, and corn. If you're looking for a salad, this isn't the place to find it. While all of the food here is delicious, it was fabulous to be able to get fresh green vegetables and really great salmon that wasn't fried.

After eating as much as we possibly could, we headed off to Ollantaytambo.



Ollantaytambo was once a the estate of an Incan emperor, and is now a famous arqueological site. When you arrive, you have to walk up:



levels and levels of terraces.

When you walk to the top of them, you can turn around and look out towards:



the town and surrounding mountains. One of the mountains has:



a face(profile) carved into it. This is the face of Viracocha, the most important Incan god, creator of all. He looks out over the ruins.

Once we got to the top of the terraces, we walked along the mountain to the other side and back down to the ground.



Because of some awful bus traffic, we couldn't leave Ollantaytambo. Instead, we checked out a house that makes chicha, a corn beverage, this time alcoholic. It was pretty gross. Then because we still couldn't leave, we went down to the river. Then when our bus was finally able to come get us, we cheered at all the tourist buses until we were picked up and left for back home.

All I all, the Incas really liked to stack big rocks on top of even bigger rocks. If you can't get enough of that, this is the place to be.

More entries to come,

Victoria