Our Life in Ruins

We have been having a whirlwind of a time these past couple weeks. Started working on a mural, were visited by some friends from Boise, did a lot of last minute shopping, met and befriended some Brits who assisted in painting mural (both are named Matthew) and purchased a tourist ticket to see 16 sites (we visited 14). I could write about everything but then Sara would get mad at me for hogging all the fun stories so this will only be about the ruins, and trust me, that is plenty.

So Cusco makes you purchase a Boleto Turistico to visit the sites, it cost S/.135 and is good for 10 days. So we were hardcore tourist for 10 days. The good news is during these 10 days we were visited by my friend Dan Broockmann and his girlfriend Diane Kenski. Dan is a couchsurfing friend I met in Idaho, the most fascinating thing I can say about him is he has a bathtub in his backyard (surrounded by an amazing garden) which is great to soak in while watching a meteor shower.

 A disclaimer, because of the amount of sites visited and the attention span of most individuals, I am only going to include a small tidbit of information about each ruin visited.

Our tourism kick starts with Ollantaytambo, a massive ruin about 2 hours north of Cusco, located in the high rainforest or Peru and the hardest to reach from Oropesa. The highlight of this site is the massive stones located in the temple of the sun. What is impressive about the site is that all the stones came from a quarry on the OTHER side of the river below. To get the stones to the site the Inca would divert the river around the stone. CRAZY, right? There are a lot of carved stones left stranded along a path which are called "the tired stones." This is also a site of an Inca victory over the Spanish. The Spanish horses could not climb the high tarracing walls, and in addition to the high walls, the Incas diverted the river to flood out the Spanish once they attacked. Brillant! (I am sorry to say I do not have photos of this site because we forgot to bring the camera card, we left it in our USB to upload photos for folks stuck at home. If you would like to see photos, you will have to wait ´til we return.)

A view of terracing on the 2 hour walk down from Pisac

Enjoying the stone couch at Pisac.

The next day we met Dan and Diane in Cusco with the idea of seeing four sites in one day. We were successful! This day started with a long cab ride from Cusco to PISAC, a town and ruin about 1.5 hours northeast of Cusco. The site is massive! I had the idea that we would climb to the site from the town but once we saw the site we all descided to cab it to the top, which was a good idea as it took 2 hours just to climb down! Pisac is a bit lower in elevation than Cusco and it was a HOT day. The site was impressive, though. There are two parts to the site, one is the resident section and the other is the sun temple, with terraceing everywhere. Hard to desribe in a short description...look at the photos, we remembered our card for the rest of the sites.

The total site of Tombomachay

After Pisac we took a cab back with the barganing skills of Dan and had the driver drop us off at TAMBOMACHAY, this site was so small all you need to do is look at the photo, because thats the whole site. Its only 7 Km from Cusco and was most likely a weekend retreat from the Inca.

Pukapukara

Right across the street and only 6 Km from Cusco (yeah, somehow in the info packet Dan was reading to us in his best archaeologist voice said that by crossing the street we were 1km closer to Cusco) is PUKAPUKARA. This is where the servants of the Inca would stay when he visited the retreat 1km away. It too was a small site but is unique because of the 2 door entrace. The name means "the red stone."

This is one massive rock that has passages carved into like a maze. This picture does not do it justice.

After crossing the 1km street we were in high hopes that the walk back to Cusco would not be very far at all. But it took a good hour or so to reach Q´ENQO about 4km from Cusco. Right now I am laughing a bit inside because I know probably somewhere around 100% of the people who just read Q´enqo mispronounced it. You have to click your toung at the begining. The name means "zigzag" and the site consist of a massive rock that has walkways carved into it. The site was probably used to sacrifice animals or maybe for Chicha (it is the drink of the gods, afterall) Q´enqo completed our 4 ruin day. Afterwards we had a bit of a walk back to Cusco where we got dinner and rested from our day of productivity.

The huge bowl of Moray, the bottom is planted to give the idea of what it was like.

Dan and Diane buggered off to Machupicchu and left Sara and me to fend for ourselves. Our next site was MORAY, about 2 hours from Cusco. It is a bit off the beaten path, but well worth the visit. We had to take a bus to Urubamba, get off early then catch a cab to Moray. Our cab broke down after dropping someone off so we got another cab. The most interesting thing about the ride out there was that our fellow passenger had a vest from Idaho. He worked for a program from the University of Idaho. Interesting, huh? And has a friend who lives in STL. Our cab dropped us off and we told him not to wait for us becaue we did not want to pay the extra money.

Ok the site. The site is a massive bowl carved into the earth with plenty of flagstone steps to help you climb down. It is thought to have been used to experiment with crops, as each terrace has its own microclimate based on the elevation of the terrace. The Incas used this site to see which crops grow best at which elevation. After we finished exploring the site we were without a cab to we started hiking it back the 13km or so Maras, the closest town. Lucky for us we flagged down a car passing by and made it back to Cusco in no time. We chose to skip Chincerro because it is only a church built on top of a ruin. Which church in Peru isn´t built on top of a ruin? Not many.

Relaxing on a wet Inca bench at Tipon. A zigzag wall is in the background.

Carved fountains at Tipon.

More fountains at Tipon. Can you spot Sara?

Inca Canal, it keeps going and going and going.

Next site, and closest to Oropesa, is TIPON. This was a massive site and so very close to our home. But it was a stiff climb to the top (Dan said the road up there is extremely bad and not worth using, so we hiked up an Inca road. Dan saw this site before us, but it was dark and they had only had 10 minutes to see the site.) This is my favorite Inca site. It has an extensive canal system, with one canal that appears to split the earth in half it is so large. Above Tipon is the site of Pukara, not part of our ticket, but free with the climb. So many tarraces and waterfalls. Que Bonita.

The pre-Inca site and place of the flea, these are all stone built homes.

Our next site was PIKILLACTA which was the only Pre-Inca site we saw. This place was also massive and had skeleton of a dinosaur and armadillo at the museum. The name meas the "the place of the flea" which is kinda a ironic. More on that later in June. There are huge walls everywhere because the Wari culture that built the site had entrances to their homes on the second level. Close by was the Incan Gate, another site not on our ticket, but still fascinating. After we saw the Inca gate we stood on the side of the road and waited for a bus to take us to Cusco. One did.

Sara hugging a stone. She loves the old rocks. This is one of the medium sized stones at Saqsayhuaman.

the 20% remains of Saqsayhuaman.With a massive Jesus in the background. No boundaries.

In Cusco we saw SAQSAYHUAMÁN again. It was worth seeing in the daylight. The site is massive with stones that weigh 3000 tons. WOW! It was used as a fortress to train troops and for religous practices.

Sorry this post has taken so long but as the days dwindle we are trying to sqeeze everything we possibly can into our trip. We also saw some museums, some better than others. Some had rocks in them and some had art and some had both.