Aguas Calientes and The Sacred Valley
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2011
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Trip End
Jul 28, 2011
Aguas Calientes, Sacred Valley, Peru
Friday, July 8, 2011
Day 36) We awoke at 4AM and were in line waiting for the buses up the mountain to Machu Picchu by 4:45AM which was actually pretty late (some had been lined up since 2AM). We were still able to get to Machu Picchu around sunrise and were treated to our first breathtaking views of it. We canvased the site back and forth and then did a walking tour up a mountain to where we would have entered the site had we hiked the Inca Trail (oh yeah, we didn’t hike the Inca Trail… too damn cold and altitude sickness sucks which equals us taking a very nice train in style there!)
Day 37) We left Aguas Calientes in the morning via train towards the Sacred Valley where we would spend the next couple days.
Day 38) Horses, again! This time we took a half-day ride through some beautiful mountainous country-side to a working salt mine and some more Inca ruins called Moray. They speculate these concentric circles were used as an ancient laboratory to test growing conditions for different crops. According to our guide, each level can vary by as much as 5 degrees and helped the Inca’s decide where to plant their crops outside of this experiment zone.
Day 39) We stayed at a very nice hotel and in the morning they had two resident baby alpacas who came out to play. We enjoyed petting them and taking pictures but had to get on our way back to Cuzco for our last night there. There, we took in the last views of the city as we would depart for Lima in the morning.
