The Inca Sacred Valley Tour

The day after returning from the Inca Trail trek, I boarded a bus with a number of more regular turistas to tour the Sacred Valley. This is basically the Urubamba River valley from the town of Pisac, north of Cusco, to Ollantaytambo further downstream.
   

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!



  

Socksy Wahmun

Yesterday I took what is called the City Tour.

This is a bus with guide that stops at several sites of interest in and just outside the city of Cuzco. The most interesting site was the one called Sacsayhuaman, which is pronounced not quite like "sexy woman". The old belief (from the early 20th century, and propagated in the above link) is that this was a fortress of the Incas. The current thinking is that, in fact, it was the royal palace of the great Inca king Pachacuti. The Incas laid the city of Cusco out in the shape of a puma (a spiritually significant creature in their mythology), and this structure is the head of the puma. (See the map on this page to get the idea.) It has a spectacular siting on a hill above most of the city, and is currently only about 15% excavated.

Tomorrow I start the Inca Trail. My next update will probably be Wednesday evening.

These are pictures of Sacsayhuaman, and views of the city from there. There was also a small llama/alpaca viewing area nearby...
    
     


  

RW watches some native dancing

Yesterday morning, on the level portion of the Plaza de Armas in front of the cathedral, I happened on some locals engaged in some sort of dance. They were not in costume, but I did snap a pic or two.

Today I found out why they were there. This morning was some sort of festival/presentation/contest, sponsored by "Educacion Cusco". It's for the children, awwww. Anyway, the street in front of the cathedral was blocked off, and there was a small crowd, and an increasingly large number of dance groups decked out in colorful garb. Over the course of 1 1/2 hours I probably took 100 pictures, as these groups (1) practiced on other street sections, (2) made their competitive performance (there was some kind of trophy at stake).
    

You can't buy this kind of serendipity. The dancing was often some sort of courting ritual dance, with men and women starting separately, and ending more-or-less paired off. Some were themed around some sort of profession -- one group had men as wood-cutters, another as gauchos.

    
   

     

The moves were similar to some traditional North American native steps, and some of it would have been right at home if played to English Country Dance or Morris music instead of Andean pipe/accordion/strings music. Of course, some moves weren't similar at all...

    
  

The proceedings were interrupted at one point by a parade of activists from a political party. They were helpfully followed by a police van carrying riot police (!), probably more as a precaution. In discussion with the tout for one of the restaurants on the plaza, I learned that there are regional elections here a week from Sunday (similar to the just-passed American elections).
  

This afternoon I'm heading out on a bus tour to a few nearby archaeological sites. Pray to the rain gods (to stay away).