CUSCO & THE SACRED VALLEY, PERU 2016

The next day we travelled by bus to the Inca capital Cusco. This was an interesting eight-hour journey passing through undulating barren terrain. We were to stay in a very smart hotel, a colonial-style hacienda built around a courtyard. The afternoon was spent exploring the city whose architecture epitomises Spanish colonialism with its thick white stucco walls and exteriors, together with its curves, arches, terracotta roof tiles and ornamental ironwork on balconies. This architecture is interspersed with impressive stone buildings such as Cusco’s imposing cathedral. The centre of Cusco was rather crowded relative to the more tranquil areas that we found by following the winding back streets. We stumbled across a café-restaurant called Greens, where we sipped fragrant lemongrass tea whilst perusing the menu. This enticed us to return there later for dinner when I relished a salad of piquant goat’s cheese atop roasted root vegetables.

 

The following morning we visited a couple of museums, one showing pre-Columbian art, principally vessels made of clay representing religious symbols. Whereas the contemporary art museum showed colourful geometric patterns by renowned Peruvian artists. Later that day we had a coffee lounging on an elegant sofa in front of a blazing fire of the Monasterio hotel, a former monastery that has been elegantly renovated, now providing luxurious comfort.

 

In the Andes to the north of Cusco lies the Urubamba Valley, otherwise known as the Sacred Valley, which we were to explore with the well-informed historian, Carlos Mendivil. We first stopped at a farm where we saw many different species of lamas and alpacas, differentiated by their size and coats. They were rather tame allowing us to feed them and stroke their soft fleecy fur. We then drove to Pisac archaeological park where the well-preserved ruins consist of agricultural terraces, former residences, guard posts, watch towers and ceremonial religious centres. These ruins stand above the town of Pisac, famous for its artisanal market selling handicrafts, including alpaca wool woven into patterned textiles. 

 

 

 

Our next stop was Ollantaytambo, the administrative centre of the Inca empire, considered a fortress for its imposing monuments. In its prime, it was a well-structured and organised city composed of urban sectors, palaces, temples, observation points, terraces, platforms and storage areas. I was fascinated by the immense size of the rocks, so tightly slotted together that not even a credit card can fit in between the seams.

We then visited Moray where the Incas had carved rows of concentric circular terraces into the hillside to grow a variety of crops. They effectively formed micro-climates at each level in order to carry out crop growing experiments based on the temperature differences. The primary crops grown were corn, potatoes and quinoa. 

 

 

The Maras salt mines were a spectacular sight to witness, consisting of terrace upon terrace of more than three thousand individual pools of different sizes and dimensions. These pools are fed by an underground salt water source located higher up the mountain. The Maras salt pools were first constructed by the Incas around eight hundred years ago and are still in use today.