Sacred Valley
Trip Start
Mar 02, 2005
1
23
28
Trip End
May 07, 2005
Cusco,
Peru
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
The market in the village of Pisaq was really amazing. It was enormous! There were indigenous people selling all sorts of handicrafts: blankets, hats, sweaters, tableclothes, flutes, painting, sculptures. So many colors! It was one of the biggest crafts markets I`ve ever seen.
The ruins in Pisaq were stunning. The Incan site is at the top of a mountain, more than 1000 ft. above the Sacred Valley. So you walk over the site of ancient Incan temples and look across at 13,000ft high mountains and look down and see the Urubamba River and the green fields and terraces. Just beautiful.
The ruins in Ollaytatambo were interesting, but the location just wasn´t as impressive. And by the time we got to the third site, Chinchero, the sun was setting, so we barely got to see anything. ALthough the drive was spectacular: as the road climbed up to Chinchero we rose to over 13,000ft and from there could see all these snow covered mountains illuminated by the setting sun.
I also ran into two Norwegians on the Sacred Valley tour whom I had met a month earlier at the Black Sheep in Chugchilan, Ecuador. It was nice to see some familiar faces, and we met up for dinner in Cusco that evening...
