Cuzco and the Valley of the Tourists
Trip Start
Jan 04, 2008
1
88
122
Trip End
Dec 17, 2008
Cuzco,
Peru
Friday, September 5, 2008
Saqsaywaman 62
. There are plenty of example of Inca stonework in Cuzco centre but Saqsaywaman really shows their style in all itīs glory. Apparently it was originally thought that Saqsaywaman was a fortress but later the consensus of expertise generally agrees it is some sort of temple. Opposite the Saqsaywaman site there is a large hill overlooking Cuzco , which is overlooked by a large "White Christ" statue and has some superb views down over the city. By the evening I was feeling pretty tired again as the effects of the efforts on the Inca Trail were still apparent , so I booked myself on a "Sacred Valley of The Incas" tour for the following day , grabbed some food and had an early night at the hostel. The Sacred Valley tour visits three key places - Pisac (market and Inca ruins) , Ollantaytambo (Inca ruins) and Chinchero (church) ... and to visit these you have to buy the "Boleto Turistico" (Tourist Ticket) , which costs either 70 soles (about GBP13) for the one day trip just to these particular sights or alternatively double that for another type of ticket valid for 10 days which also includes some selected museums in the city ... Cuzco really is something of a tourist trap which tries to maximise the amount of soles it can glean from its visitors. On the tour we stopped first at a small artesania market on the way to Pisac which had the usual Peruvian handicrafts and tourist products for sale aswell as a couple of local indigenous women in traditional costumes posing for photos (for some soles of course) with llamas,alpacas and a weaving loom
Saqsaywaman 1
. We were there for all of fifteen minutes and as the bus drove away from the little market we noticed a much bigger and more impressive looking artesania market a few hundred yards along the road ... most people wondered why we didnt stop at that one instead - my cynical side suspects someone is being "incentivised" somewhere. Then we headed to the much bigger market at Pisac , which was very good but we were only given thirty minutes time there - I think most people would have happily wandered around for an hour or two. There were both a food/produce section aswell as the ubiquitous tourist products/artesania , largely staffed again by local indigenous women in traditional costumes ... far be it for me not to join in the tourist purchases so I got a pack of cards with classic Peruvian images (left my cards behind in Arequipa) and an Inca style case for DVD/CDs which is much needed for my ever growing collection of DVDs with all my trip photos backed up. There were also some cute guinea pigs in an elaborate hutch in the market , but I suspect they are not being bred as fluffy pets , more to become the local delicacy that is "cuy". After our rush around the market we headed to the Pisac ruins , known as "Inca Pisac" which are at the top of a hill overlooking the valley with some fantastic views. At this point it started to rain which I hadnt even considered in preparing for the day ... both Cuzco and the Inca Trail had hot sunny weather during the day and I had carefully packed sunglasses , sunhat and suntan lotion to my daysack
Saqsaywaman 2
. To be fair I wasnt the only one ill prepared and the local ladies selling plastic ponchos for a few soles were doing a roaring trade ... as always in Latin America where there is a business opportunity & money to be made a product or service will appear. As it turned out the "ponchos" were little more than a plastic sheet with the sides not tied together and a very ineffective "hood" so they were pretty useless especially in the wind as we walked up the hill to the site of the ruins ... so I got somewhat wet. The ruins themselves are split into a number of different groups up on the hillside and comprise the remains of an Inca fortress , temples , solstice markers , canal/irrigation system and the usual steep agricultural terraces in the hillside. Explanation by the tour guide was in my opinion very limited and again we were given an all too brief amount of time to explore the ruins and snap our photos. After Pisac it was back down the windy hill to the bus and we were off to our lunch stop at a "restaurante turistico" in Urubamba where an expensive buffet at 20 soles awaited (in Cuzco you can get a 4 course meal for 10 soles) but to be fair at least the food was pretty good. After lunch it was onwards to Ollantaytambo , the village that was our first stopping point for breakfast on the first morning of the Inca Trail trek. This time , however , the stopping point was not the pleasant little plaza but rather the superb Inca ruins , "Temple Hill" , which are up in the nearby hillside and were mainly used as a religious and ceremonial centre
Saqsaywaman 3
. There is steep terracing with steps leading up to the temple area at the top where one of the main sections of the Sun Temple is the "wall of six monoliths" - a set of huge granite stones which must weigh tens if not over a hundred tons . There are also other large stones lying around nearby and the site is thought to have been unfinished for various possible reasons such as war or earthquake. There are also many remains of Inca buildings back down at ground level near the village and indeed many of the houses in the village are visibly built over existing Inca style foundation blocks ("canchas"). Ollantaytambo ruins are indeed pretty impressive but alas the armies of tourist clambering all over the place unfortunately rather diminishes the experience ... perhaps at least the tour visits could be somehow staggered so there are not so many groups at once. After Ollantaytambo our final stop was Chinchero Village where there is an attractive colonial church built over the foundations of an Inca temple ... the remains of which are clearly visible in the Inca style stone work at the base of the buildings underneath the otherwise white walls. The approach to the church is through a small plaza where there are many indigenous women again touting the artesania / tourist products to the numerous tour groups. The church is impressive with its religious and floral designs which cover the walls and ceilings inside , but outside the main tower could do with using some of the tourist soles to give it a lick of white paint. These places we visited were all very good in their own right but forthe day was very rushed to cram it all in ... we wanted longer at all
of the places ... the explanations from the tour guide were somewhat
limited and it is very very tourist with literally busloads of tourists
following the same route to the same places at the same time , making
for hordes of people tramping around each of the places and detracting
from the experience.
