Inca mysteries

Hola!

Hope this blog finds you happy & well. We´ve just returned from a 4 day trek over the Inca trail which was heaps of fun!

After the last blog however we were on our way to Cuzco. Cuzco was once the Inca capital & is absolutely gorgeous (Pic of one of the streets on the left). We only had a night in Cuzco before travelling onto Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley using a public bus which was an adventure in itself. We stopped on the way in a small village to have a demonstration of how the locals weave many of the brightly coloured textiles we´ve been seeing everywhere. The children are trained from as young as 9 years old (Pic on the right of one of the weavers) & are experts by the time they´re 20. They use Alpaca and Sheeps wool which is converted into yarn by hand and dyed into bright colours using pigments found in local products (including a bug which is found on cactus plants). The yarn is then woven by hand into all sorts of products from belts to bags to table cloths. A small meter square table cloth takes around 4 weeks of labour.We bought one of the small cloths for 180 soles.

We also stopped at Pisac on the way to have a meander through the markets and lunch. Pisac was once an Inca town and therefore has very narrow streets which are largely cobblestones. It´s a cute little town, & had heaps of gorgeous markets. We nearly bought several of the brightly coloured textiles but stopped ourselves in time (remembering the size of our backpacks).

Finally in the afternoon we arrived at Ollantaytambo which was also once an Inca Town. It has narrow cobblestone streets and a lovely big square in the middle. Overlooking the town are huge Inca terraces and the remains of a temple on the top. Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the terraces and the temple remains and we admired the Inca design where the stones are so perfectly fitted together so as to be almost seamless (Pic on the right of part of the temple). It is mindboggling to think how they managed to get such huge stones up onto the mountain and carved into place.

The next day we travelled from Ollantaytambo to the kilometre 82 marker which is where we began the 4 day trek to Machu Picchu. We had a crew of 14 porters, a chef, a guide, and an assistant guide! The porters were incredible. While we were puffing our way slowly up a hill at high altitude, the porters were almost jogging past with burdens of up to 25kg. On day one we saw two Inca ruins which are believed to be resting places for travellers and/or agricultural farms and greenhouses. Our guide also explained many of the properties of the plants we passed on the way. Plants for indigestion, shampoo, to assist the lungs etc etc. Incredible stuff. We arrived to our lunch stop to find that the porters had set up a large tent & cooked a delicious 3 course meal for our lunch. They did the same for lunch and dinner on every day, and in the evenings even had our tents up before we arrived to the camp sites!

Day two is said to be the most challenging as it is almost straight up to Warmiwanusca (Dead woman´s pass) at an altitude of 4,215m (Pic of Richard on right & Pic of me on the left with some Llama´s which wandered onto the path). We found it quite difficult, especially as it is quite difficult to catch your breath at that height & it was incredibly cold.

After getting over the pass it was another 2 hours down many stairs to the bottom of the valley where we camped for the second night. It was very cold that night & we all rugged up & went to bed quite early.

I actually found day three the hardest as it was mainly downhill using steep stairs. It was the longest day of treking and was quite hard on the leg muscles & knees. The views on the way was very rewarding though (Pic on the left of one of the views on the way). We saw the ruins of Phuyupatamarca (the "Town above the clouds") toward the end of day three before heading to camp.

The final day to Machu Picchu was raining quite heavily. We rose at 4am in the dark to pack up camp & head to the Sun Gate which is perched on the mountains above Machu Picchu & which, when the clouds cleared, gave a fantastic view (Pic of us with Machu Picchu in the background on the right). We arrived at Machu Picchu at around 9:30 am covered in mud & rain and exhausted.

Our guide gave us a detailed tour of the site after which we headed down to Aguas Calientes for lunch & to catch the train & a bus back to Cuzco which is where we are now!

We are in Cuzco for another couple of nights to rest and relax before we head to Puno and Lake Titicaca and finally La Paz in Bolivia. Lots to look forward to!

Lots of love

Richard & Corryn