Our own Inca Trail

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

As we were unable to walk the Inca trail in the end we decided to get to Machu Picchu via our own Inca ruins trail. The majority of people get there via the train from Cusco, and head back on the same day, but if you do that then you are arriving with hundreds of other people, and we fancied getting there a bit before the train. So we started our journey on Wednesday.
We got up in the morning, left the majority of our stuff in our nice hostel and caught the local bus to Pisac. The journey was quite nice down from Cusco into the Sacred Valley along the Urubamba River. It took us about an hour and we arrived in Pisac in the late morning. It was a bit hard to find somewhere to stay as we didn’t have a map of the village, but we eventually found somewhere on the main plaza, which was rather overpriced but nice enough. If you take a sacred valley day tour from Cusco they bring you on a Pisac market day, Wednesday not being one of these days, we were surprised to find a huge market in the main plaza. We spent quite a long time having a look around at the nice crafts and fabrics and then had some lunch before making our way to the Incan ruins.
We had decided to get a taxi up to the ruins and then walk back down again. Pisac only gets a paragraph in our guide book, so we weren’t really sure what this would entail, but it seemed like a fun plan. The taxi took us up the mountain to the highest part of ruins where we could see a few huts and things. We walked around to where we could see some nice terracing and a small ruined area of houses. We then walked along a ridge to the next part of ruins which was a military area. It was really beautiful walking around as we were up in the mountains and there was a Peruvian man playing his flute, the sound from which carried all across the valley. It was quite haunting.
The walk to the next area was a little dangerous, with huge drops to the sides of the steps that we had to climb. Apparently a German fell and died four months ago. We also squeezed ourselves through a tunnel in the rock before coming to the Temple of the Sun. This was an incredible collection of buildings which had been constructed with very large blocks of stone. It was all very straight and well crafted. It was very impressive and looked a bit like a mini Machu Picchu. After this we looked down on another set of ruins before making our way down the mountain back to Pisac.
If you ask Chris, this was a cool walk with lots of fun steps to go down and rocks to hop on, but I on the other hand thought that it was a bit scary and quite dangerous! My legs hurt quite a lot the next day from going down all the steps, but it was quite cool to make our own way back. At one point we could hear voices, and as we came around a corner there was a group of Peruvian ladies who wanted to sell us water and woven belts. We gave them a bit of change so that we could take a photo and then carried on with our walk. A while later one of them came zooming past us, obviously more used to the terrain than us.
Pisac is a far cry from Cusco, with hardly any tourists there in the evening. When we were trying to find somewhere to eat, all the restaurants were full of locals watching a football match. We attempted to use the internet, but it was the first place we’ve come across on our whole journey that didn’t have broadband, so we didn’t bother doing very much.
The next morning (an advertised market day) the market had grown and there were bus loads of tourists walking around bargaining for alpaca wool hats and the like. Chris bought a poncho for his new gathering character and then we caught a taxi to our next destination – Ollantaytambo.

Ollantaytambo is another small village that gets taken in on the day tour from Cusco. It is nestled between the mountains and has some very cool ruins to explore. On one side of the village are some old grain houses quite high up on the mountainside, next to which is a giant face that has been carved out of the rock. The Incas were quite amazing.
On the other side of the village is the fortress, which we decided to leave until today to explore as yesterday there were too many tourists and the light wasn’t very good for photos.

Unfortunately this morning it was pretty cloudy and rainy, so we waited around looking at the craft stalls for a little while. When it didn’t really show any sign of clearing we decided just to go in to the ruins. It was a steep climb up the steps next to the terraces before we reached the cool walls and doorways that we have began to recognize as being typically Incan. The fortress was one of the last Incan strongholds against the conquistadors and was very nice to visit.

For lunch we went to a café recommended to us by a Dutch couple that we met in our hostel. It is run by a 76 year old English lady who moved to Peru four years ago and lives out in one of the small villages nearby. The café has only been open for three weeks and she is giving all of her profits to the women and children of the village she lives in and five other villages. She has set up a kindergarten and a home for abused women and children. A very commendable and cool thing to do with ones retirement.

This evening we are catching the extortionate train to Aguas Calientes where we can get an extortionate bus early in the morning tomorrow to Machu Picchu.