Ahhh…. the untold simple bliss of sleeping in. It was 0930 before we saw the day and began by shopping for clothes and souvenirs. Sue’s bartering skills are becoming well honed. We visited the Museo de Inca which had many wonderful artifacts and models of Inca towns and gave an even greater insight into how great the civilisation was. It also had many pre-Incan artifacts, some dating back to 2000 BCE. The next stop was the Museo de Arte de Anti Colombia or Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, which had even more artifacts and lots of gold and silver. Each item had a description in Spanish, English and French and they were completely over the top with things like “the strength and plasticity of the artist manifests itself in the timeliness of this object and its anthropomorphic themes”. Whoever wrote it would put Edmund Capon to shame. Read the rest of this entry »

We got to sleep in a little today before going on a tour to the Sacred Valley of the Incas starting at 8am. Since we are the only 2 people on our tour, we are by ourselves on all of the bits that don’t overlap with other tours. This hasn’t happened yet.

We had the services of Hernan as our guide for the day who first took us to the ruins of Saqsayhuaman (it only sounds like sexy woman), where a very impressive temple sat at the head of the old Incan city, the shape of which was a Puma. One of the stone blocks in the temple weighs 130 tonnes, while another selection of stones gave the outline of a Llama.

Having seen the stone Llama we then went to a Llama and Alpaca Zoo where we saw traditional hand weaving being done with Llama and Alpaca wool dyed with vegetable and mineral dyes made on site. From here we went to Pisac to visit some more ruins high above the valley. The religious buildings were all made with large stones that fitted together perfectly. Below these buildings the hill had been cut into terraces for agricultural purposes, while water was channeled along the contours of the hill from a creek several kilometres away.

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The hotel is in Calle de Garcilaso and is the second hotel named after the street.

We arrived here are being picked up at the airport by Carla, who bought us to the hotel and then took us on a walking tour of the city. It was only short and taken having some tea made with coca leaves which was meant to help overcome the effects of altitude sickness. I was feeling a little light headed and occasionally short of breath, but this soon passed.

The town is pretty (rather very) crappy on the outskirts, but the centre is rather nice, set around a few squares, it has a number of beautiful churches. the buildings are a mix of Incan foundations with Spanish colonial buildings on top. The cathedral, which is normally closed (or only open for a fee) was open for Good Friday mass at no charge. It was massive inside and had rooms down each side filled with statues and alters dedicated to a variety of saints as well as JC and his mum. One of the Christs was black, and the main statue of Mary looked distinctly like a South American Indian.

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