Machu Picchu, Cusco and the Sacred Valley

This picture is just an eye catcher to get you interested in our blog posting.

We need this kind of marketing for this posting, because it is really really long.

We thought we were super smart, staying one week in Arequipa at 2400m (8000 feet) above sea level before going to Cusco at 3400m (11000 feet). No chance! After walking up the first stairs in Cusco, we were still out of breath.

Bill and Nic, a very nice ex-patriot American couple with four small kids, rented us an apartment in an old Spanish style building with a lovely courtyard. The rooms were pretty with wooden floors and an old wooden door.

We soon found out, that the Spanish made a mistake, when they built the houses in Peru like they were used to in Spain. Find the mistake.

Yes, it is hot and sunny in Spain. You do not want any sun in your houses.

It is not hot in Cusco high up in the mountains. You would like to have some sun in the rooms. Especially if you do not have a heater. The rooms were really cold. It is not a real problem in the Andes, because you buy yourself an Apalca wool hat and wear warm sweaters in your living room. At night we filled empty plastic water bottles with hot water and put it in the bed. None the less, we still had a nice time in the apartment.

What else was different in Cusco? We went to a café and wanted to order with our few Spanish sentences as we were used to doing in Arequipa. And we got an answer in fluent English. Nobody outside Cusco speaks a single word of English and they look at you as if you came from Mars, if you use just  one English word in a sentence. But Cusco is Gringo-land, an American enclave in the middle of the Andes Mountains.

We walked down to the main plaza (Plaza de Armas) and felt like being in Germany in the 40s. All the school classes were marching in a straight legged and armed march to some military music.

We soon realized, this is not Germany or USA, because some people just look and dress differently. Even if it looks a little bit like a Bavarian Diandl.

What can you do to fight the issues with the high altitude? We got many tips on that one.

• Drink a lot of water
• Take Aspirin
• Have some Mate tea
• Chew coca leaves

We found the very best solution of all. You just visit the highest Irish Pub in the world and have a few pints of Guinness.

On the next morning, we wanted to test our plan against altitude sickness. So we hiked up to Sacsyhuman (pronounced Sexy Woman), which is an old Inca site above the city. We made it in no time, because of the Guinness.

We met a nice guide (Julio), who told us a lot about Incas and herbs. We had really nice views from up there. As a highlight of his tour he led us thru a pitch dark small tunnel without any lights. We were both happy to see the end of the tunnel. He was very polite and did not touch Michelle in the cave. But Michelle did, because she was afraid to lose the guide in the dark.

Is this a Saxy Woman or not? Just look at these legs.

To make our catholic hearts clean after all this Inca religion stuff, we walked also up to the big Jesus statue overlooking the city.

In Cusco, in order to visit the archeological sites, you buy a tourist ticket which includes all the sites and an evening with traditional music and dance. We expected native dancing as you would see in North America but that was not the case. Both the traditional clothing and dance are a mixture of Spanish and the Indian cultures.

Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley

When the Spaniards arrived in Peru around 1540, Cusco was already the capital of the Inca nation which stretched at its height from Columbia to Chile. Actually though, the Incas rule was relatively late. Machu Picchu was only built around the 1400s. By European standards, this could be almost be seen as modern.

Unfortunately, tickets for Machu Picchu are limited per day, cannot be bought online and are sold out months in advance… so this is one of the few times we reverted to booking a tour and had the full service from 5 am pickup at the apartment, bus to Ollantaytambo, Inca Rail train to Agua Caliente and bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu along with a coca leaf chewing guide for 2 hours. The guide called the picture below a one million dollar picture. All in all it was very pricey. But at least it was at little less than one million dollars.

Yes, Ollantaytambo is a really name of a village. For Peruvians not more difficult than Oberammmergau for Bavarians or “La Jolla” for Americans.

This is an example of the stone work done by the Incas at Machu Picchu – a famous temple called “temple of 3 windows”. Hey they were good builders but not very creative when it came to naming. With better Marketing people they probably would have resisted the Spanish and the “Inca Empire” stock would be trading in the stock market for 247 USD nowadays.

Agricultural terraces all the way down to the Rio Urumbamba which flows into the Amazon

We spent a further day driving around the rest of the Inca Sacred Valley climbing around ruins: Ollytantamba, Pisac, Chinchero to name a few.

Hiking at Ollytantamba – Michelle is hugging the wall because it is a long way down. The terraces behind me were used for agriculture.

Incas did not have blond hair and were not afraid of heights.

Michelle is obviously not an Inca lady.

Terraces at Chincero

The Incas worshiped the mountains and built their cities on top of mountains in some of the most stunning scenery in the world. Very impressive!

At this wonderful place and evening light we took some special picture. Uli has an Instagram account and did not post anything yet. Would these pictures fit into the Instagram community???

We also tried to take some pictures with our new selfie stick.

They did not work well because of the selfie stick or the scenery. The selfie sticks are just too short for people over fifty. You can see all the wrinkles. Please make longer selfie sticks!

2 crazy gringos

Uli and Michelle quickly tired of the city and wanted to hike through the countryside. We took a look at google maps and directed our driver to drop us off in the back country where we would hike about 20 km and meet him in another town. He looked at us and shook his head.  “Touristico loco”, which means crazy tourists. But still dropped us off. The hike went from Izuchaca to Maras by the lovely Laguna Huaypo passing through farming villages and surprise, surprise more Inca ruins.

 Buildings are made of adobe bricks, mud mixed with straw

It is common for houses to have political slogans and advertisements painted right now. I wonder how my neighbors would react if I painted some Green Party slogan on their houses?

The good, the bad and the ugly

Peru like many other developing nations has a big problem with plastic trash. It is everywhere… as well as dogs. It makes me want to go buy some trash bags and clean everything up….

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words:

Recycling Peruvian Style