Peru's Sacred Valley

After Titicaca, we headed deeper into Peru. Our first stop was Cusco, which became a home base for some sightseeing near the city.

Cusco is located within a very large valley, known as the "Sacred Valley", because it has many ancient ruins that were sacred places for the Inca Empire. Below is a shot of a ruin within the city limits of Cusco, called Koricancha, which is the Inca Temple of the Sun. The Spanish Conquistadores then built a cathedral over this sacred place, so it has an interesting combination of architecture.

Another nearby ruin that we visited was Saqsaywaman, which had an excellent view of the city behind it. Our guide made sure we pronounced it correctly, as it sounds like "sexy woman" in English. I probably never would have thought of that without him pointing it out.

At this site, we were given our first close up glimpse of the architectural workings of Inca walls. The sites are known for being built without using any mortar between the rocks. The rocks were cut perfectly to fit each other, and as you can see, have stood the test of time.

Below, you can see how big some of these rocks actually are. Many of the rocks at this site weighed tons. You can also see that the fitting together of the rocks was nothing less than perfection. They didn't just pick out some rocks that looked good next to each other, they worked them over until they were made for each other.
I should mention that the section that looks a bit shoddy was a reconstruction effort that was poorly done.

Saqsaywaman would have a lot more and maybe bigger walls at the site, if people hadn't been taking the stones from here to construct buildings within Cusco. It wasn't until 50 years ago that this became officially banned.
These places are so authentic that you can sometimes see women in traditional outfits leading around a llama. But be careful, should you take a picture that they might be in, you will probably be asked for money. I think I was far enough away from her that she didn't notice me.

Here's another nearby sight, called the Red Fortress. Laura is spreading her wings in what is now our favorite pose for photos. We call it: Condor.

We actually saw these sites on a tour bus with a bunch of locals, which we regret because we could have done it all on our own. Probably for cheaper, and probably without the abundance of annoying, inconsiderate, and slow moving people you can see in the next shot. This is a natural spring and fountain that with Inca walls surrounding it.
After the tour, we enjoyed some excellent street food from a roadside grill. These sorts of roadside grills are abundant in Cusco, and as long as it looks pretty clean, I would recommend the meat on a stick to anyone. It's also an extremely cheap way to eat in a town that caters to the wealthy tourists.
The ruins of the Sacred Valley extend far beyond Cusco, and into neighboring towns and villages. After an hour or two on a bus we found ourselves in the Town of Pisac, where we climbed the mountainside to some highly elevated sites that offered excellent views.

Behind the ruins below, you can see the road that now exists to just be driven to the top of this site. But that just feels like cheating. And for about 10 bucks? I think I'll just walk.

Pisac is also known for a huge market that takes place on Sundays. There was a whole lot of things from veggies to stone carvings to alpaca sweaters.

Here a few women are selling vegetables, and sometimes trading them. It isn't all that unlikely to see a bag of carrots change hands for a sack of onions. It also isn't that unlikely to see the women eating their inventory. I personally watched the woman on the left eat about 3 carrots.

As Sunday is a pretty big deal here, there were many restaurants open for business with some excellent smelling foods. And this place had pets! A cool little guinea pig pen! Aren't they cute?

Wait a second...... Ohh. They have cuy on the menu. That means guinea pig!

Our final trip within the valley was to Ollaytantambo. This one was also along a mountainside with terraced walls. This site is still being uncovered at the base of the mountain, so there will probably be more to see in the future.
The walls are not always equal at all sites. Though this one did have some of the enormous rocks fitted together, there were also walls that clearly were put together with mortar.
Our final night in Cusco, we decided to go out for a drink with some German friends we made. There are many clubs near the main square that were dying for business at the time who offered a free drink to start, and after that you can still get cheap drinks. However, we made a stop at one particular club that offered the free drink pass as you entered, but somehow, our friend Christine kept acquiring more passes throughout the night. We ended up paying for nothing at this club. HA!
And here we are, with Christine and Ulrich!