Sacred Valley - Chinchero

  Chinchero, Peru
Tuesday, August 30, 2005

View our photos of Chincero, here.

WHERE TO GO IN THE SACRED VALLEY
We only had one day to explore the Sacred Valley, so we planned it for Sunday when large markets are held in the villages of Pisac and Chinchero. Some fellow travelers told us that it was definitely worth taking time to explore the various Inca ruins and trails in the Sacred Valley if one had the time. View our images through the link above and search for more information on the links below:

www.andinatravel.com
rumbosonline.com

GETTING THERE
There are many tour companies that offer whirlwind day tours of the various Inca sites and Andean villages in the Sacred Valley. Although Pisac has an elaborate castillo de cuyes (a home for their cuy delicacy, guinea pigs), it is the larger and more touristy of the markets. We opted to go the smaller village of Chinchero (28 kilometers/17.4 miles from Cusco) for approximately US$1 using local transport.

We decided to go the local route on a mini-bus and made a point of going to the least touristy market in Chinchero, 28 kilometers (17.4 miles) from Cusco. See ENTRY #5 - Cusco: Capital of the Incas - and scroll down to Buses/Trains/Taxis.

Being crammed onto a tiny bus with the local populace is always a good bird's eye view on the humanity of the culture one is visiting. For 50 minutes we stood and fought for space, as the mini-bus stopped at various localities to gorge on or regurgitate riders in its belly. Between the local Indians with sleeping babes swaddled on their backs, to the urban Cusco dwellers visiting friends and family on the outskirts of town, to the silent and wide-eyed Japanese female females, to our Gortexed & Vibram soled selves humping day packs & digital equipment and the sublime scenery of bucolic fields and third-world poverty, the haphazard drive was very telling about Cusco as a living and breathing city, and the Sacred Valley's fecundity.

The journey through Cusco proper was literally straight up in a frenetic zigzag. Once out of the main tourist section, we realized that the anything not within walking distance of Plaza des Armas was in almost stereotypical developing nation squalor with mud-huts mixed among electrical poles and wires running into huts with no windows, but a television. Open doors with people crammed around one computer, yet pigs rummaging in the nearby garbage pile. And the rubbish - no wonder one did not see any near the Plaza de Armas, it was all transported and vomited into the outer byways, nooks & crannies of greater Cusco: the further we drove from the center of town, the more litter grew exponentially worse.

But, once out of the city proper and following the surprisingly serene trek of Peru Rail into the Sacred Valley, the abundance and fertility of the Andean mountains became quite evident. Due to its proximity to the equator (and despite the altitude of 3,762m/12,342ft), there were numerous motifs of vibrant agriculture: farm animals, fields, and crops. Even the road we traveled on was surprisingly free of potholes found (oddly prevalent in cosmopolitans like New York and London). By the time we reached Chinchero, we could easily imagine that we had driven back in time to a quieter and more peaceful existence.

Our return to Cusco was quite unadventurous, as we combined a 20-minute taxi ride with a nice German couple (10 soles).

CHINCHERO



Chinchero (population 2,000) easily could have remained a dusty village, but its Sunday market, Inca ruins and tourism have ensured its livelihood for the time being. Called "El Pueblo Del Arco Iris" (the town of the rainbow), legend states that Chinchero is the birthplace of the rainbow, and the villagers have a rainbow festival every year on May 2. Chinchero is considered to be a "typical" village of Incan and Spanish mixed influences. Located midway between the highlands and the heart of the Sacred Valley, on clear days there are impressive views of the mountain peaks of Salkantay, Veronica and Soray. Its settlers, dressed in multicolored clothes, maintain their Indian race, only speak Quechua and still keep their age-old customs that they refuse to abandon.

Once we disengaged ourselves from the tangled mass inside the bus, we had no idea where to go. Being good tourists, we tagged behind others (who probably didn't know where to go either), and eventually made it to the market square.

MARKET



The market was fun and festive. We bought tons of items for family and friends back home (as prices were slightly cheaper than in Cusco). The villagers also maintain the trade systems called "trueque" or "cactu," the fair exchange of agricultural products, in which the use of currency is discarded and all items are exchanged. Once we got tired of oohing and aahing over the 100th yet same/similar llama wool this or that, we explored the town itself.

It took a few moments to orient ourselves to the fact that the actual village was not the mass of buildings surrounding the market, but the steep hill, streets and buildings above it. Worse: we had to actually pay to get into the village as its main street is guarded by ticket sellers of the Boleta Touristico. Worse yet: if we had explored around a bit more, we would have simply walked into the village another way.

There is a small restaurant near the Boleta Touristico booth, which is a good place to rest and watch the locals in traditional dress haul 50 kilos on their backs up the breath-sucking incline.

INCA TERRACES
The colonial church is worth stopping by (we even saw a tourist with a blue blazer and loafers??), but the highlight of the village is really the Inca terraces (called andenerķas) behind and down the valley beyond the church. The terraces were considered to be part of an extensive agricultural hub that fed the main Inca city of Cusco.



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