The Sacred Valley, Peru

Besides Machu Picchu, there are countless Inka ruins in Peru and beyond. Quite a few are close to Cusco, in the Sacred Valley. There are tourist buses that can take you to all of these in one day, but we wanted to take a bit more time and spend less money by taking the local transport.

The first town we visited in the Sacred Valley was Ollantaytambo. There is a large Inka fortress there that was really impressive! They quarried all the stone from a mountain about 6 km away and then had to drag the massive stones -some the size of trucks- up another mountain for construction. There are abandoned stones all the way along. They even had to cross a river and used the huge stones to divert the flow of water so they could cross. SO MUCH WORK! The town itself was very interesting too and is one of the best examples of inka city planning and architecture.

The next day we boarded an even more crowded bus than the day before to head to the town of Pisac. Pisac has many inka ruins high in the mountains, inka baths and also an inka cemetery, which has been completely plundered of course, so we could only view it from a distance. It looked like a honey comb on the side of the mountain. I have no idea how they dug those holes and dragged the dead bodies up such a steep cliff.

Pisac is also famous for its huge Sunday market. There were hundreds of stalls selling fresh produce and handicrafts. We wanted to buy a lot but we have no room in our bags for souvenirs so we just bought freshly squeezed orange juice from an old lady and some other fruit.

The bus on the way back to Cuzco was so packed we could barely breathe...but considering the smells coming from everyone who had spent the day in the hot market, we were happy to hold our breath!