Sacred valley 24 Sept.re

Today I enjoyed a bus trip to the Sacred valley. After suffering bad altitude sickness. The tour is at a 1000 meters lower than Cusco.

An early start and a late finish. I was first picked up at 8 am then we went around to the other hotels. In the end there were about twenty people. Then the tour started.

The highlight was the afternoon sunset. A little more difficult to catch a photo out of a moving bus, and the smoke from a nearby bushfire helps with the mystery. 

For the tour you need a ticket for the entry to the tourist sites, which allows you visit sites over a number of days. Some are in cusco city, others in the area around cusco, and the remaining are in the sacred valley

Cusco at 3400 meters we headed up to 3715 meters and then back down to Pisac at 3040 meters. 

Here we purchased the ten day tick and visited the first ruin.

A good introduction to the farming practices of the Inkan people's. And steps!

Then into town and the first stop to shop, and kick back to tour guide and driver. 20 minutes later we are on the road again. I have a flight which is only allowing me 15 kg, so I will not be buying anything!

We worked our way along to Calca, at 2750 meters, and the to Urubama 2648 meters. This was our lunch stop.

A nice relaxing spot.

Then onto Ollantaytambo and tour of an Inkan ruin. 

The main part of the ruin is on one side if the valley which we climbed, however on the other side there were three buildings. These were the grain and food stores. Due to the risk of fire these stores were located away from the main residential area, also due to the location there was a natural refrigeration effect for food.

  

  

Then we started to head back to cusco via Urubamba. We climbed back up to Chinchero at 3762 meters. Here a Catholic Church was built on top of an inkan ruin. For some reason the priest would not open the doors even though there were three bus loads of tourists at the door. So all we saw was the outside. Darkness came rapidly and we then were moved on to lot at the natural ways of dying alpaca wool.  The red comes from cochineal which is a bug living on cactus pads.

  

Then with the offer to buy more clothes, jumpers, and scarves. 

Then in the dark now, we were back on the bus and returned to Cusco.