The Sacred Valley
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2010
1
10
28
Trip End
Mar 21, 2011
Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Peru
Thursday, November 11, 2010
We stopped next at Q'enqo, another Incan temple that was used to celebrate the Incan version of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The Incans mummified their dead (only the nobility) and would bring out the mummies during important cerememonies . This served as a way to show respect for their ancestors and maintain the relationship between the dead and the living. (We saw a few mummies in the Incan Museum, by the way, and they look very creepy). At Q'enqo there is a 20 ft tall natural rock that the Incans built a protective wall around. Willy described this rock as a Roca Madre, or Mother Rock. The Incans were a very spiritual people, revering the Pachamama, or Mother Earth. Rather than moving the rock for their own construction, the Incans respected it's place and built around it. I only wish we could revive this Incan respect for nature!
Next stop was Tambomachay, an Incan purification site. Travelers to Cusco had to stop at several sites for purification and meditation before they could enter the sacred city. Tambomachay has a large stone wall with a central stream of water that splits into two streams. The split represents duality in life: good and bad, female and male, life and death...One amazing thing about this site is that no matter the rainfall, the water always flows at the same rate. It's thought that the Incans built a subterranean canal to accomplish this, but no one really knows.
We then headed over the mountain bordering Cusco and down the other side into La Valle Sagrada, or Sacred Valley. The Incans revered this valley, and we now understand why....It is absolutely stunning. 12,000 ft mountains with Incan terraces, blue skies and puffy clouds, sleepy red-roofed pueblos with corn and potato crops covering the ground. The people here have maintained much of their traditional lifestyle---their Quichua language, clothing, festivals, agriculture---it's a very fractured view of how the Incans lived, but a view nonetheless. We descended down into the valley, and up the other side to the Incan site of Pisaq.
Pisaq was an Incan town, agricultural site, and temple. It's situated at the side and top of a mountain overlooking the valley. The Incans built terraces in a semi-circular shape throughout the entire mountainside. There is a small Incan pueblo near the terraces, with a stone trail hugging the mountainside leading to the temple. We walked along the trail for about an hour, passing through a tunnel at one point, until we reached the temple. The temple sits on a promontory and has a 360 view of the Sacred Valley. The buildings were constructed with perfectly square carved stones, all walls with a slight angle to provide protection from earthquakes. One building made of crudely fit stones doesn't fit with the rest—Willy explained that this is a pre-Incan structure that was made before the Incans created the temple. Once again, the Incans respected it's place and built around it.
Afterwards we drove west through the valley and had an amazing buffet lunch at a tourist restaurant in Urubamba--ceviche, alpaca meat, stews, chicha (sweet purple juice made of fermented corn), pasta....Best lunch we've had in a long time, on our backpacker budget! Our next Incan site was in the town of Ollantaytambo, where the people still live in houses with Incan foundations. The town is watched over by an Incan citadel---about 200 feet of terraces leading up the mountain to a sun temple at the top. The temple has pink stones over 30 ft tall that were carved out of a mountain across the valley—how the heck did they bring them here?! Before the Spaniards defaced it, the temple had 3 large carvings of pumas. You can now only see the outline. This site was important as one of the main temples of the Incan God, Wiracocha. The mountain across the site naturally has the face of Wiracocha –it does look like a strong deity face.
Next we headed to Moray, a former Incan agricultural site that looks more like an alien landing strip. The Incans created circular terraced depressions that go down into the ground, rather than going up a mountainside. It's thought that they used this for agricultural experiments—each lower terrace is 5 degrees warmer, so they grew different crops on each level. Adam and I climbed down into the bottom level of the terraces and we felt like we were at a New Age energy ceremony, with all the Earth funneling down onto us. Pretty cool.
OK, two more sites til the tour ends, I promise. Next we stopped at Maras, a natural salt plant. For some mysterious reason, a small stream with 70% salt water flows out of this mountainside. The Incans discovered this first (of course), and funneled the stream into evaporation pools to harvest the salt. Today there are over 900 salt pools, making the mountainside look like a checkerboard of white squares. This site provides all the salt for Cusco and Puno, about 500,000 people.
Our last stop was Chinchero. By now we were suffciently tired enough that I accidentaly started speaking to Willy in English. Chinchero was a former Incan pueblo that the Spanish conquered. They then enslaved the local Incans to build a cathedral over the top. In a small rebellion, the Incans tricked the Spanish by keeping the Incan foundation, and painting Incan characteristics onto Mary and baby Jesus. Had some delicious choclo, boiled corn with cheese, on the way out.
And that was all in one day. One glorious day that suffciently proved to us that the Incans were incredibly intelligent, nature-loving people with a few ideas I wish we could emulate.
Comments
What a wonderful tour. Thank you so much for the updates. It is so much fun to see this through your eyes. Love you
You are probabbly already on to the next part of your trip...but if you are still in Cusco, remeber to go to Cafe Jacks for the fluffy pancakes with mangoe whipped cream! YUMMY
mango without the -e of course:)