The first stop was the market at Pisac town. If this sounds to you mostly like a tourist trap, it is. The annoying thing is that 20 minutes above Pisac town is an Inca ruin, which "there is not time to see". Sigh. It seems like all the stuff that was for sale here was similar to what was for sale elsewhere (Cusco, etc).
Then it was off to lunch in the town of Urubamba. We narrowly avoided getting caught behind one of many political events there. Since the regional elections are Sunday, there is a very high level of political activity going on everywhere. Both Wednesday and Thursday more than one of Cusco's plazas was taken over by rallies.
But I digress. Lunch was a buffet-style affair with "tipico Andino" food. How this includes ceviche (a Peruvian seafood soup specialty) escapes me. The dining was accompanied by (1) a sort of "music minus one" recording and (2) a few musicians playing traditional instruments. The tunes were not traditional (unless you consider the Beatles to be traditional).
Ollantaytambo (Oh-yan-tie-tum-bo) was the highlight of the tour, with (not really surprising to me) not enough time allocated to it. The guide, a Quechua who claimed to be from Ollantaytambo, was quite enthusiastic and somewhat informative. (He also claims to have run the Inca Trail in 4.5 hours. I believed that part.) This particular site was left unfinished when the Spanish arrived, so a good deal of the Inca construction technology was exposed to view.
From Ollantaytambo, the bus proceeded on toward the next stop, Chinchero. En route, the lighting was so nice, the bus driver stopped for picture-taking. Note that the first two thumbnails here link to large (2-3Mb) images, since these are panoramas.
The last stop was Chinchero, a town at about 4000 meters that is still occupied, and largely built in Inca foundations. Imagine how much stuff was for sale there. The guide was really good here, because he was able to communicate how designs and patterns varied from one part of the highlands to another. To him, gringos all look alike, but he can tell where highlanders are from by the patterns they wear.
The day concluded with a taxi trip to the bus station, where I boarded the night bus to Arequipa. This is not your typical Greyhound. They have attendants, serve food and drink, and showed a movie (which I ignored, as I was vainly trying to sleep).
So I'm now in Arequipa, in the shadow of the bubbling El Misti volcano. Tomorrow (Saturday) I head off on a 2-day tour of the Colca Cañon, which is quite nearly the world's deepest (Cotihuasa next door is slightly deeper). If there's Internet in Chivay, I may post from there. Otherwise, it'll just have to wait until I get back to Arequipa.
Hasta luego!
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