Peru. the Sacred Valley

After too many hours in the air, finally I landed in Cuzco then shared a taxi into the heart of the 'Sacred Valley'. Spring is almost here and the landscape is still dressed in golds and browns, fields being worked in the time honored methods of men behind an ox-driven plow or by the hands of the whole family.  Behind them, the Andes rise jagged and  blue.

 

My base is Ollantaytambo, a town built on Inca foundations, a small city with narrow cobbled roadways between high stone walls that hide the living quarters and courtyards complete with colorful clotheslines, chickens, perhaps a cow. Traffic consists of walkers with or without their livestock, motorcycle taxis, but seldom an automobile. Those haunt the plaza along with a daily stream of tour buses. Many people in this area wear traditional dress, colorfully woven shawls, brightly trimmed skirts and interesting hats for the women, mostly western dress on the men.

Inca stonework.

view from the Inca ruins overlooking Ollantaytambo

 

Augusto, our cabbie of choice, took us to Patacancha, a small town known for its traditional weaving. The dusty road took us up, up into present day Inca country, past old ruins, terraced mountainsides, narrow cultivated valleys, brown adobe settlements, waterfalls and mountain views. After a short stop in Patacancha we followed the road deep into the mountains where cultivation gave way to the rocky, golden grassland where alpaca grazed, treeless, with blue jagged peaks all around. My head was splitting and my heart beat wildly in my chest long before we reached the crest where Augusto finally turned us around, announcing the altitude to be 6,000 meters.

 

Other side trips included:

 Moray where the Inca made circular terraces is believed to have been an agricultural experiment. Apparently the ecosystem changes enough from terrace to terrace to make a difference,  veggies on the bottom layers, then potatoes, corn, wheat and finally the hardy quinoa at the highest levels, a system that is still in use, I was told.

 

Next stop Salinas where there are salt pans have been worked from ancient Inca times, fed by a natural mineral spring higher up the mountain.

 

The Sunday market in Chinchero is where I bought reasonably priced alpaca products, my woven purchases being a very small part of the market's offerings. There I ate my lunch. a stuffed red pepper on a small cornmeal patty, tasty and colorful. The woman cooking them had some fileted fish breaded and laid out at her feet...in fact, one foot rested on that fish. I was amused but not tempted.