Monday, July 15, 2019

Day 11 - Sacred Valley Part 1: Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Chinchero

so I close my eyes and realize
that I'm alive deep inside
Strange American Dream - Rayland Baxter

During breakfast on day 11 I said, life would have been so different if we stayed in this hotel all along. It was nice to finally get my own room. I finally managed to get some sleep, but because I hadn't been getting proper rest my body was breaking down more and more and the problem I had in Arequipa was happening in Cusco at a scarier level. The good news was that the next 2 days would be lighter. I like to do difficult things first and I often schedule light easier things towards the end on my trip. That day we're doing the first of our Sacred Valley tour which would cover Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Chinchero. The day tour for that day and the next didn't include entry tickets. They needed to be bought separately. There are different tourist tickets available for 2 days, 10 days, etc and we bought the 2-day one which covered places that we visited that day and the next. Hence why the visit to Sacred Valley was planned to be back to back. The pick up time was getting better at 07:30 am something. We're kinda always the first to be picked up. I guess because the hotel is not really at the old town center. First stop was Pisac archaeological site. The sites that we visited in Pisac and Ollantaytambo are quite the same to the one in Machu Picchu. These were human settlements. So you would see terraces which they use to cultivate their food, mostly potatoes and you would also see the ruins of the habitations. When we arrived there weren't many people yet and it's kinda cool that way.

Again the pictures are not good, I don't know what's wrong with me, but here you can see the settlements. They're located on a higher elevation. I guess to make it easier to see people coming in.

The site has a lot of terraces. An interesting thing about this terrace to me is that from afar I didn't think they were tall but up close the height of each level is like one metre or so. I don't know why only then it hit me when I already saw similar terraces the day before in Machu Picchu.

The settlements in Pisac faces a big mountain and the view of this mountain with the valley below was quite something.

As usual I don't recall anymore what the guide explained. He gave us some time to explore the ruins. There's a lot of steps if you really want to get all the way to the top. I can't recall if I really explored everything. Also by this time, there were more tourists coming in. After this site, we went to Pisac the town. There's nothing much here actually. After a visit to a silver shop, we walked around the craft and souvenirs market. I was so so tempted to get the ludo board game because the pieces were cute, but I didn't :( instead I just took photos.

Then we went for lunch. It was buffet lunch and it wasn't bad. The restaurant catered to a lot of tourists that they had a band playing. After that we made our way to Ollantaytambo archaeological site. I kinda already saw what the site looked like when we passed by the day before to take the train and I thought man, we're travelling back and forth to this town. It's actually not very near from Cusco, it takes almost a 2-hour drive to get there. This site is kinda divided into 2 sections. The part that we visited is accessible by steps and steps. There were so many of them and it took a lot of effort. Climbing up these steps were harder than all the things we did thus far. This section of the settlement also faces a mountain. In the mountain, you can see some ruins. I recalled the guide telling us that some of the ruins were for food storage. I thought they chose it to be high up to make it difficult to be stolen, but like in Machu Picchu, they chose a place with good ventilation to preserve the harvest. I don't know if one can visit the site in the mountain, but I think it will take a lot more effort to get there.

After the guide finished his explanation, again we're given time to explore on our own. I tried my best, but I didn't get all the way up. Here's a section of the sites that we could explore.

Last visit of the day was Chinchero. The town was small and quiet when we're there. We visited the Colonial church. Below is the arch gate to enter the church compound.

There was a service inside the church and we couldn't take picture. I recalled that the ceiling was beautiful. Nearby the church there was another section of terraces, similar to what we've seen so far. The sun was setting and it was getting colder. The view of the hills were pretty nice.

Then it's back to Cusco. We didn't get back too late, but we're also too lazy to walk around that we decided to just eat in the hotel. One of the dish we ordered was guinea pig. It's out of curiosity and the cold-hearted us didn't have any hesitation at all in eating it :D Our hotel didn't do it in the traditional way which was to roast it whole. It was confit and we weren't served whole. I don't know if it's because it's confit, it tasted to us like ducks. Oh, I also ordered lucuma milkshake following the waiter's recommendation. I didn't know what lucuma is and wasn't sure if I heard him correctly, I googled it and he confirmed it was correct. The drink was nice and I like it. It's kinda nice to try local fruits. I know my mom would be interested, she loves fruits. Too bad we couldn't get those fruits this side of the world. Overall the day was less hectic which was good and very welcomed. For pictures from that day, please go here.

:) eKa @ 9:54:00 PM •