Category: Travel Beyond Lima

Sacred Valley: Machu Picchu

6/5/2015

Machu Picchu is at the north end of the Sacred Valley in a spot where the valley has narrowed dramatically and the mountains rise steeply. It's said that the Inca couriers were so fast and the road so good that fresh fish could be delivered from the Pacific to be served for dinner. It took us that long to make the final leg of our trip, a short 20 miles by rail.
It seems strikes are a frequent pastime of Peruvians and the teachers of the Province of Cusco had chosen the same day as our trip to stage a strike. Their strikes are different from ours in the US in that they are announced far in advance and they transport giant boulders to scatter across roads bringing transport to a halt. Our hotel operator convinced us to leave at 5:00 AM to beat the road closure even though our train wasn't scheduled until 11:00. We arrived at the train station in Ollantaytambo at 5:30 and proceeded to wait, thinking we had bested the strikers. Turns out they weren't to be outdone so easily and also put boulders on the tracks so our train couldn't get to the station to take us down the valley to Machu Picchu. By the time the chaos was dealt with, it was 5:00 PM and we were finally on our way. Experiencing the local culture is one of the things we came for.

We knew the waiting room very well by the end of the day.

Dozie really enjoyed the captivating scenery outside the train window.

This equipment was eventually taken to break the boulders into small enough pieces to remove from the tracks.

Finn and Sam whiled away the hours playing chess with a local chessmaster.

Machu Picchu is one of the most photographed places on the planet so it's hard to think I can really add to what you've already seen. I also think most people have a pretty good idea of its story so not much to add here either. That having been said, I'll write about some things I learned and add a photo slideshow at the end. The main thing that struck me was how stunning the location is. Machu Picchu is actually the name of one of the peaks no one ever photographs. The buildings we all think of as Machu Picchu are situated on a small, flat space at the top of a peak that drops precipitously down to the river and are surrounded by similar mountains with morning clouds adding a dramatic extra to the scene.

No one is sure about anything related to the site except that it is a new Inca structure not built on top of anything previous cultures had built. It was home to only 700 or so people and it is conjectured that they were all Inca nobility and this was either their permanent home or a country escape. Astoundingly, it was built in only 70 years and occupied for only another 70 years before being abandoned. The site is imbued with religious significance from the shape of the peak, Huayna Picchu, in the background of most pictures (with a little imagination you can see the outline of a human face, forehead on right, chin on left, nose in middle in the headline photo). Many architectural features have religious and astronomical functions.
The site was never seen or plundered by the Spaniards so was never recorded as existing. Some historians assume the royalty that lived here picked up and moved to Vilcabamba, a more easily defensible spot, after hearing of the demise of their leader at the hands of the Spanish. There were a couple of Quecha families farming the terraces when Hiram Bingham, a Yale archaeologist working in the area in 1911, heard rumor of the undiscovered site. Since then, it has become one of the top travel destinations in the world.

Slideshow

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Sacred Valley: Urumbamba

5/30/2015

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You can see Urumbamba on the map above, about halfway down the Sacred Valley. On the other side of the river you will see Maras and Moray which are considerably higher in elevation as the valley ascends very steeply up both sides of the river. The only Inca ruin of note around Urumbamba is Moray that, in and of itself, wouldn't be worth spending the night to see. However, our horseback outing in Arequipa was so successful that the boys wanted to go again and we had found an outfit out of Urumbamba that seemed worth the time. We weren't disappointed. Photos of the horseback adventure are minimal since I found, at least for me, it's difficult to take photos while mounted on a horse.

Talk about Big Sky Country!

I was initially disappointed since we were originally scheduled to ride up to some Inca ruins but when the horse operator realized the boys were 7 and 9 he decided a flat trip through an agricultural area would be better. Since it was mainly for the boys I acquiesced. Turned out to be the most improbably beautiful agricultural area I've ever seen. The foreground reminded me of the rolling hills of western Pennsylvania but with a backdrop of 18,000+ foot, cloud-shrouded peaks. And, if you haven't been on a horse lately, flat is far preferable to uphill and down.

The boys couldn't have been happier. Not only did they get to control their own horses for most of the ride, they got to trot them quite a bit.
I grew up in an agriculture area and am always interested in local crops when traveling. Never would I have imagined wheat and hops growing higher than 10,000 feet. Turns out that the light coupled with being in the tropics where it doesn't snow or freeze at that elevation create a great environment for farming. The area is famous for potatoes and supposedly over 300 varieties are grown here. It's also famous for hops that supply Peru's largest brewery and also wheat and quinoa, a big cash crop as its popularity in the US has grown.

Slideshow of Journey to Moray on Horse

Moray

Moray is a unique archaeological site in Peru. The site is terraced in a natural depression with an extensive irrigation system. The orientation with respect to wind and sun creates a temperature difference of 27 degrees between the top and bottom terraces. The Inca empire ranged from the Andes to the Amazon basin and it is commonly thought that the Inca used this site to study the effects of different climatic conditions on crops and to study domestication, acclimatization and hybridization of wild vegetable species that were modified for human use. Not bad science for 600 years ago.
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The Sacred Valley: Pisac Ruins

5/27/2015

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Looking southeast over the Rio Chongo River Valley.

Beautifully symmetrical terraces on the southern exposure.

     Pisac, (or P'isac in Quechua, still the first language of most of the people living around here) is referred to as an Inca ruin but in fact predates the Inca by 800 years. The Wari (or Huari) settled in for the long haul around 1500 years ago and expanded the site over the next 800 years until the Inca arrived and subjugated them. The Inca made numerous additions over the next 200 years until the Spanish arrived in the 1500's to loot everything precious and destroy all things religious to the native people.
     The strategic mountaintop location commands the southern entrance to the Sacred Valley. This was the largest inhabited area in the valley with over 20,000 acres terraced and under cultivation. The terraces literally wrap around the mountain from top to bottom.
     Much of what I learned here turned everything I previously thought on its head. I thought the valley was settled first and then subsequent terraces were built farther up. Turns out the Wari preferred to start at the top and build down for reasons of safety from both natural disasters and human invasion. Water wasn't the problem I thought since there are two lakes higher up the mountain and the Wari had an extensive irrigation system, some of which is still functioning. Something else I found interesting is that the stone retaining walls of the terraces act as heat reservoirs that increase the temperature of the air on the terraces and continue to radiate heat into the evening thereby increasing crop productivity.

Entrance to the religious center of Pisac

Stone work here rivals Machu Picchu, especially noted for smaller size of stone

It's hard to get a good picture of the full layout of the site since much is gone and it spreads out around and down the mountain. But what's left is pretty amazing. The following slideshow gives some examples of things to see. I hope the photos give some feeling of the scale, verticality and beauty of the site.

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The Sacred Valley: Pisac Market

5/21/2015

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The Sacred Valley was the heartland of the Inca. It's southern end is just over the hill from Cusco and its northern end is Machu Picchu. The valley was cut by the Willkanute River. Because it lies in the tropics you can find crops like wheat growing at 11,000 feet and it was the fertility of the land and climate of the area that made it so important.
Pisac is the town at the southern entrance to the valley. It was first settled by the Wari (Huari) 800 years before the arrival of the Inca but that's the subject of the next blog. Modern Pisac is the subject of this blog.

Farming community of Pisac

Modern Pisac is a farming community lying in the valley bottom of the Willkanute River. Farmers grow corn, quinoa and various vegetables. Its Sunday market has become a major producer of income as it draws tourists both directly from Cusco and also those on the way to Machu Picchu.

Marnie, Dozie and the boys looking to add to the local economy

One of the best things about markets like this one for tourists in Pisac is that there is a parallel market for the locals. The following slideshow demonstrates color from the local market.

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Arequipa

4/14/2015

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Last week Finn and Sam had Thursday and Friday off for Semana Santa so we decided to spend the long weekend in Arequipa, a city of a million inhabitants and Peru's second largest city. It's trademark is El Misti, a dormant volcano, that dominates the skyline. In reality, the skyline is dominated by 3 dormant or extinct volcanoes giving me the impression of living next door to 3 Mt. Shastas.

The three are named Chachani, El Misti and PichuPichu. They are frequently draped in clouds and not visible. Indeed, we walked around for 2 days and I could not understand all the hype about the mountains and then on the third day the skies opened and the mountains were hard not to see. Really quite a beautiful backdrop.
Arequipa is called the "white city" because much of the original city was constructed of "sillar" a whitish volcanic stone deposited by the neighboring volcanoes. Stone carving reached its height here in the 17th century as evidenced by the work on La Compania, a Jesuit church just off the Plaza de Armas, the center of the city. It's still a gathering place for Arequipenos. There were a few tourists in evidence but the majority of the denizens were locals and of a much more indigenous nature than where we live in Lima. Lots of people on the streets, lots of activity and even a great Last Supper Thursday night street celebration thrown in.

The boys are generally pretty good about participating in adult-inspired tourism and we like to reciprocate with some child-inspired activities. This led us to what turned out to be our highlight of Arequipa--a horseback ride up the Chili River Valley. Jaime saddled up some handsome Peruvian paso horses and up the valley we rode. To the right of the trail the rocky, dry ridge rose precipitously. On the left the valley opened up onto 1000 year old terraces still worked by hand. Along the trail the old water courses were still delivering water to the plots below. It was explained to me that those in control of the bottom terraces are the lucky ones. Seems the area is full of rocks, great for building retaining walls for terraces, but not so good for farming. The soil for farming has been carried up by bucket from the river for 1000 years and those at the top spend most of their time hauling soil while those below get to grow something.
We are now back in Lima and daily life.

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Madre de Dios

2/27/2015

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In line with our plan to travel extensively during our time here, we spent most of last week near Puerto Maldonado on the Madre de Dios River adjacent to the Tambopata Preserve. I think the expansiveness of the river panoramas are hard to capture and once inside the forest the opposite is true. As you see in the photos, it is the rainy season, which actually worked quite well for us. It rained almost exclusively when we were either on the riverboat or inside. One memorable afternoon we decided to take the canoe across a small lake during a thunderstorm with an incredible downpour. The boys loved it. Hard to believe but this whole wide river is subject to flash floods. It rose 3 feet during the week we were there. It seemed like a river of chocolate milk strewn with bobbing logs eroded from the banks. Our guide, Ruben, reported that the river grows wider by 2 meters a year due to the incredible power of the annual rainy season.
Most of the observable animals are birds (there are more species in Peru than in all of North America including Canada) and I was in heaven. Marnie had a near religious experience involving a pair of scarlet macaws flying directly over the boat so she is close to being hooked on birdwatching too. Sam, who feigns indifference, may have the sharpest eyes and he displays a knack for remembering names. Once identified, he will call them by name any time the same bird is spotted afterward. It's great to hear him say, "Look, there's a social flycatcher." Without much trouble we were, with help, able to identify over 35 different species and saw many more we couldn't name. Many were strikingly beautiful while others were drab. The air around our cabana was filled with many types of bird songs all day long.

The Amazon Basin with the Madre de Dios River highlighted in pink
CREDIT: Madredediosrivermap" by Kmusser - Own work using Digital Chart of the World and GTOPO data.. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Madredediosrivermap.png#mediaviewer/File:Madredediosrivermap.png

Some other highlights of the trip were a canopy walk through the treetops, a visit to an animal rescue center, and a night excursion into the rainforest where we turned off our flashlights and experienced total darkness while listening to cicadas humming and frogs chirping. Finn was quite interested to discover a giant pink toed tarantula out for its evening feed in a tree that we had been passing daily. Meanwhile, Sam has decided that he wants to volunteer at the rescue center after high school. Our hope is to go back in the dry season to observe the differences.

Slideshow of Our Trip

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Sacred Valley: Machu Picchu

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Sacred Valley: Urumbamba

Slideshow of Journey to Moray on Horse

Moray

The Sacred Valley: Pisac Ruins

The Sacred Valley: Pisac Market

Arequipa

Madre de Dios

Slideshow of Our Trip

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Sacred Valley: Machu Picchu

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Sacred Valley: Urumbamba

Slideshow of Journey to Moray on Horse﻿﻿

Moray

The Sacred Valley: Pisac Ruins

The Sacred Valley: Pisac Market

Arequipa

Madre de Dios

Slideshow of Our Trip

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Slideshow of Journey to Moray on Horse