Peru - Cusco and Ollantaytambo

We had our first poorly day from food/water - out of action for a day. Didn't do too badly to get this far though!!








The Qorikancha. This building is a classic example of the Spaniards building over Inca Temples - you can still see the grey large stones of the Inca Sun Temple and there are buildings inside. Then on top you have the Spanish building.

Cusco central plaza

Cusco cathedral. Inside there are representations of several different religions in seperate sections. There is also a Jesus statue with dark skin - that is because the Inca's worshiped the colour black.

Saqsaywaman. This was built in line with the sunrise and sunset. All of the Inca's buildings were slanted slightly inwards - the theory is that this was to make the buildings earthquake proof.

Cusco.

Tambomachay - this site was another temple. If I remember rightly the fountains produce sacred water to bathe in. There is also a stone on the right of the top level which was carved in the shape of a seat for the astrologer to sit in.

Health and safety in South America - we came out under the tape after our tour. That was after being in Q'enqo where lots of mummies were found.

The Sacred Valley.

The remains of Inca Terraces at Moray. They rebuild the majority of them to how they would have been. I think it's nice to see the ruins too. They are about to rebuild though - you can see the piles of stones that they will use.

More salt! These were like salt terraces - some of them natural and some of them man-made. They were originally formed as the spring is high in salt and made hundreds of pools where the salt solidified. The darker coloured pools were used for animals and the white pools (after cleaning processes) were used for human consumption.

They just let us all walk along the terraces - some paths were pretty narrow. It was fun though.

It was a good day all in all - lots of little, steep hikes at 4,500m (ish) to practise for the Inca Trail.

This is at a project that GAP (the tour we were on) invest in. The wool is all from Alpacas and they dye it all with the natural ingredients below. The colours are amazing.

Indigenous Peruvian women spinning the wool ready to dye.

Classical Inca agricultural terraces at Pisaq. More hiking of course. Those Incas must have been very fit!

The building with the black centre was the Temple of the Sun.

Martin and I at the top of the Pisaq ruins.

Martin at the top of another Inca site in the Sacred Valley called Ollantaytambo. The steps were more training for the Inca Trail the next day. This stone was about 70 tonnes - how the hell did they get it to the top? This was the site where the Inca's won the Spanish (for the only time) - they threw rocks down from the top. There is a theory that the Inca's were giants, and with the size of their steps I reckon they probably were.

Ollantaytambo from a distance. They built around the shape of the mountains as you can see.