ilario in the taxi

jimmy with our boletos turísticos del cusco

our 1st stop was saqsaywaman, old walls near cusco. here i started to wake up some more as we walked around in the sunshine. we could see cusco below us as we walked around the walls.

ilario with cusco as a backdrop

we could also see writing on 1 of the hills in the distance. it turns out that writing on hills is fairly common in perú. sometimes we saw the city name written on the hills, sometimes we saw stuff that i couldn’t quite make out.

viva el perú glorioso

from above cusco, i also saw some llamas on a field below. i didn’t count this as achieving my goal though because i wanted to see some llamas up close.

there were children dressed in traditional outfits at saqsaywaman. we saw this at other sites as well, and i think the parents purposely dress their kids up so that tourists will take their picture and pay the kids. as if these kids weren’t already cute enough, they even had a puppy. so i paid them a couples soles [standard tip, according to ilario] and photographed them.

next we went to q’enqo, which in all honesty wasn’t that exciting. we climbed around on the rocks and looked for where the puma, llama and condor were carved, but never found them. after that we went to pukapukara, a fortress that is kind of blended in with the other stone ruins in my mind.

for something a wee bit different, we went to tambomachay, where there are aqueducts and a bath with water still running through them.

at all of the archeological sites, there had been people selling handmade goods, but at tambomachay there was definitely the largest and most elaborate set-up we had seen thus far.

the sellers can get quite pushy

our final stop in the sacred valley was pisaq, an impressive and large expanse of ruins. when we 1st arrived, a woman asked if we wanted a tour guide. we refused at other locations, but we felt it would beneficial at pisaq. the woman only spoke spanish, so ilario and jimmy had to translate for me.

ilario and part of pisaq

the buildings at pisaq were built on a rather steep mountain with very little foliage, and i am afraid of heights. while walking on some of the paths, if you moved 6 inches to 1 way or another, you could very well slip and fall down the mountain. needless to say, i was rather scared at certain points.

chilling at pisaq

after calming down after trekking along the harrowing heights, jimmy suggested that we check out the craft market in the town below. everything was so colourful and fun to look at. i was especially excited because i saw and bought a hat with llamas on it.

i then fell asleep in the car, and i woke up when we stopped in urubama for a late lunch. then we continued on to ollantaytambo. unfortunately we arrived there right after the gates to the ruins had closed. we had time to kill before our train to machu picchu, so we wandered around the town. there were lots of tiny shops, some of which didn’t even have signs. down 1 street we came across a street party complete with women cooking up food and live music.

when we returned to cusco the next day, we did a bit more exploring in the city. we went to the pre-columbian art museum, which has pieces dating from 1250 bce to 1532 ce. the collection is housed in a building that used to be an inca ceremonial court, and now there is a restaurant in a glass box located in the courtyard.

museo de arte precolombino
plaza de las nazarenas 231
cusco, perú
084.233210
open daily, 9am–10pm

we also saw the famed 12-sided rock. when we were looking at it, a kid ran up to us, pointing at the corners and counting. i think he was hoping we would pay him for being able to count.

ilario and the rock