Today we met a group of tourists at 8:30 am for the Sacred Valley Bus tour through our tour guide service. We had a Peruvian guide named Marco Anthony (like the singer Mark Anthony) who spoke impeccable English, but couldn’t sing… Anyhow, he was more of an archeologist and had plenty of interesting information to share.
Our first stop was Pisac, an ancient Inca city in the shape of a condor. The royal bodies were buried here, over 3000 total. The bodies were buried here because the condor (a huge native bird here) is supposed to be the courier to heaven. This city was full of terraces and a still-functional water irrigation system.
The next stop was Ollantaytambo. This place is the resting place of the ancient Inca warrior Ollantay. The terraces here were strictly for erosion control and the city was never finished due to invasion from the Spanish conquistadors. This city was mainly used for storage and we learned here that the entire Inca trail system is 42,000 kilometers long (the earth’s girth is only 40,000 km).
The final stop was Chinchero. Here we watched the local women die yarns and learned about alpaca, llama, and sheep wool. There is a beautiful church at the top of this place (elevation 13,000 ft) and this is the highest point in sacred valley. This church is considered to be one of the most ornate catholic churches in the world and houses many paintings and murals.
We reached the hotel again about 7:30pm and got ready to embark on tomorrow’s journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment