The Sacred Valley of the Incas
Trip Start
Mar 02, 2008
1
8
17
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Urubamba,
Peru
Friday, March 28, 2008
The travelling element of the trip, the flying and bussing, was getting to be a bit of a pain in the neck; I mean, the percentage of the total waking hours of the trip that was taken up by travelling time was (Terry - short version please...Jane)...oh well.
We had a slight upset at the Chilean end of LAN airlines, having been caught for US$64 / 8kg. excess baggage when we checked in at Santiago. I blamed Jane, as she started 3kg over at Heathrow, and just grew from there. My bag was spot on. When we landed at Lima, we had to re-check the luggage and lo and behold, Chilean kgs are smaller than Peruvian kgs! Well, either that or those nice people at LAN Santiago had ripped us off. I wondered what that fat, greasy thumb was doing on the scales. (no racial stereotyping there, then). Anyway, a sharp note to Mr LAN in Chile will follow via e-mail......if only I can stop relaxing and get on with it. What the hell.
Wednesday lunchtime and were driven from Cusco down into the Sacred Valley of the Incas. As ever, great views. We were staying right in the middle of the Sacred Valley for 2 nights in a village called Urubamba. The hotel comprised seven separate villas, each named after its cook/housekeeper, who was there to attend to your needs during your stay. We stayed at Villa Marlena, having been booked into Villa Sonia originally. I guess we'll never know.... The villa was really lovely and Marlena's cooking was competent. That's it Terry, damn her with that faint praise of yours.
She did, however, introduce us to coca tea, for which I will be eternally grateful, apart from when I'm arrested for possession in Starbucks. One of the things that coca tea is good for is altitude sickness (unfortunately for me, it's not nearly as good for attitude sickness) and we would increasingly use it as we suffered over the ensuing days (not that I couldn't have stopped drinking it at any time I wanted......I was only being sociable)
Oliver, our guide the next day expanded on the other properties of Coca leaves. 'Chewing coca leaves is how the Incas could manage to work moving heavy stones the whole day non-stop' he told us...'but it's not dangerous - to say Coca leaves are bad for you because of cocaine is like saying that grapes are bad for you because of wine'.
OK Oliver but I'm not about to lift six times my own weight after a bunch of seedless Waitrose white grapes now, am I? Personally, I think we should import coca leaves in the UK and feed them to the site staff of whichever utility company is ripping up London's streets at that point in time. Only an idea.....
Wednesday afternoon, we had a walk around Urubamba. Immediate thoughts - most of the women really do wear those funny hats and there were more dogs in Peru than Argentina, but less poo....how come? I struggled because of the altitude and heat; Jane walked on briskly (come on slowcoach, only another mile or so....)
Thursday Oliver took us through the Sacred Valley to Inca sites at Ollantaytambo and Pisac. I'd never studied the Incas, and was completely unprepared for the level of sophistication they showed in architecture, mathematics, agriculture, astronomy and, errr, child sacrifice.
The basis of their religion sounded a lot more folksy and, well, logical than Christianity in many ways. However, even the discredited antics of the Christian Brothers pale into insignificance when compared with the Incas. Apparently, when the Spanish turned up, there were about 1,000 youngsters lined up for an early (blood)bath.
Oliver went into the looting of the Incas by the Spaniards in great detail, and I'm sure that I was able to cheer him up by telling him that a great deal of the looted gold never made it back to Madrid, having been purloined by Brits such as Francis Drake on the way.
He did say that the Spanish were a civilising influence when it came to head shaping. Apparently, the Incas used to bind the skulls of the women from the highlands to elongate their heads, and to flatten the skulls of the women from the lowlands. This involved a great deal of pain, just to assign a post code. Well, some bright Spaniard came along and said instead of all this suffering, why don't you just get the highland people to wear tall hats, and the lowland people to wear low hats. That way, no-one gets hurt (like they cared) and they could introduce mobility of labour through a simple trip to the milliners. Apparently, that's why the women wear the hats even today. I don't know whether he was winding us up or not. Sounded good though.
The next morning, Friday, we set off for Machu picchu.
