Luckily, by the time we started this tour I was feeling much better and ready to see even more rocks! I think the fact that we were headed into the valley, with the accompanying drop in altitude also helped. Our first stop was a
mirador overlooking the valley and the
río urubamba.
After a short stop at the artisans market in
Pisaq, we went on to the ruins. Our guide said that Pisaq was a more important city that Machu Picchu-an administration center for the whole region.
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| It's a great example of the terraced farming that helped prevent erosion on the steep slopes. |
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| There is a temple on the mountain top here that takes another hour and a half to walk to. Unfortunately (?) we only had about 45 minutes to explore Pisaq. |
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| Since it was the an administrative capital, many people from the community were buried in the hillside tombs here. Unfortunately for the would-be grave robbers, the graves were for the common people who weren't buried with any gold or silver objects. |
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| Still functioning water channels |
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| Again, note the precision of the stone |
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| We almost had time to make it to the top... |
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| ...at least we got some good views from the point we made it to! |
After a buffet lunch in Urubamba (at which we did not try
cuy (guinea pig)!) we arrived at Ollantaytambo. Unfortunately, due to our train schedule, this is all we were able to see of the ruins:
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| All we knew was that there were 250 steps and there was no way we were carrying all of our stuff up them! |
I had even more time to explore after dropping Shannon off at her train and killing a few hours before my own.
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| Plaza de armas |
Ollantaytambo seems to be a calm, relaxed place with a plethora of restaurant options. It may be an even nicer place to stay than Aguas Calientes, the other end of our train destination. I will have to keep in mind for future visits to Machu Picchu.
