Machu Picchu Memories (Part 1 – Cusco)

Yesterday, the Karikuy travel agency launched their 2010 Machu Picchu Contest.  This is very exciting to me as the winner of their first Machu Picchu Contest which took place last year.  I am not generally very lucky; I never win at bingo, never seem to be at the right place at the right time, if 9 in 10 people win, I tend to be number 10.  But last year, due to a huge effort from my family and friends, I won a trip to Machu Picchu, the one place I had been dreaming of going to for years.

La Calle Resbalosa

After several months of anticipation, my boyfriend and I left Grand Rapids for Peru in late September.  We touched down around 10:00pm in Lima and spent just one night there, sampling Pisco Sours (delicious!) and exploring the city, before flying to Cusco the next morning.  Our first impression of Lima was that it was big, grey, polluted, your typical South American capital city.  Cusco, on the other hand, is in the mountains at an elevation of approximately 11,000 ft with blue skies as far as you can see and has a completely different feel to it.  It’s picturesque and quaint; a place you want to spend time in.  We were driven to the Plaza de Armas, Cusco’s main square and walked the rest of the way to our very charming hostel which was located at the top of a very steep, slippery, cobblestone pedestrian road, appropriately named la calle resbalosa (in English, “the slippery road”). After getting settled into our hostel we joined up with a tour group and went to several Incan archaeological sites in and around the city.

The Courtyard of the Qoricancha

The first site on our tour that day was the Qoricancha (Temple of the Sun) which is in the city of Cusco.  It is a beautiful Incan temple built around 1200 A.D. that now combines both Incan architecture, some original and some restorations, and later Spanish architecture.  Next we headed up into the mountains to Sacsayhuamán, a fortress built by the Killke people and expanded by the Incas which sits at about 12,000 ft.  It is marked by walls made of huge limestone boulders that are fit together incredibly precisely.  It was there that altitude sickness kicked in and I passed out en route to the top of one of the walls.  Needless to say, I didn’t make it to the top but, I heard it was great and I recovered relatively quickly but took it easy for the rest of the day.  Our next stop was Q’enqo, believed to be an Incan burial or sacrificial site followed by a short stop around dusk at Puca Pucarawhich offered great views of the mountains and Cusco.  The bus also stopped at Tambomachay on the way back to Cusco but I opted to stay on the tour bus since I was still recovering and there was some hiking involved.

Overlooking Pisac

We crashed shortly after returning to Cusco and the next morning, after a much needed, very restful sleep, we headed off to our Sacred Valley tour.  This tour was an all day tour of more archaeological sites in the Urubamba Valley.  Our first stop was at a market on the way to Pisac where there were woven and other handcrafted goods available for purchase.  We sampled empanadas and then headed off to see Pisac, a former Incan city.  The first view of Pisac is from a distance and you can see rows and rows of agricultural terraces on the hillside.  After a 15 minute walk towards the terraces you arrive at the city of Pisac where ruins of temples, baths and residences are still in tact.  After the stop in Pisac we left for the town of Ollantaytambo.  At the foot of the ruins is a small town that has a small market, a few restaurants and some lodging and serves as a starting point for hikers on the Inka Trail.  Rising about the market is the tiered village of Ollantaytambo which was once the home to Incan nobility.  One of the most impressive things we learned there was that it was one of three cities in the Sacred Valley that were separated by 240 kilometers which is the distance that could be walked in one day by the Inca people.  After exploring Ollantaytambo we had lunch in a small town then headed back towards Cusco.  Before returning to the city we stopped at Chinchero, one of my favorite stops on our trip.  There, a local woman gave us a demonstration of how the people dye their fabrics naturally and then weave them.  It was great to see the process and know that the products we were buying were authentic.

Alpaca Steak

That night, back in Cusco, T and I treated ourselves to a wonderful dinner that included alpaca steak.  I was wary of it but it was actually surprisingly tasty.  I will admit, I ordered pizza and ended up finishing that plus a good portion of T’s alpaca.  We also tried quinoa for the first time which was very good.  After that delicious meal we went back to the hostel to rest up and pack for our 4 day hike on the Inka Trail.

Read more about the Inca Civilization.

Next: The Inka Trail