Monday, 21 April 2014

Inca Everything

From the perspective of a tourist, almost everything in Cusco and the Sacred Valley is about the Incas. There are amazing Inca ruins scattering the hilltops, Spanish churches are built on top of old Inca walls and the local people still speak the Inca language. There are also Inca-buses, Inca-restaurants, Inca-hostels, Inca-pizzas and Inca-shops selling everything from postcards to alpaca sweaters. Before I visited Cusco I knew very little about the Incas and their history. But now I feel like I have had a comprehensive crash course in everything Inca.
I have to admit that initially I was worried about visiting Cusco and Machu Picchu because I had heard that they are over run with tourists. This may be true, but it did not ruin the magic for me. This is a place that deserves all the tourist attention that it gets. The mountains are beautiful, the buses are full of old ladies wearing colourful hand-woven clothing and chewing coca leaves, and the Inca ruins were even more impressive than I was expecting.

Cusco

Cusco was the capital of the Inca Empire and some of their most impressive stonework can still be seen in the walls of the streets and the bottoms of the colonial buildings. It was a beautiful city to spend a couple of days in. One day we took a taxi about 8km up the road and then walked back to the city – stopping at all the ruins along the way.

We were lucky to be in Cusco on the first Sunday of the festival of Carnival. The twelve year old boy working at our hostel showed us how to participate in the festival by filling water balloons and throwing them from the balcony of our room onto the heads of people walking by. We all took a bag of water balloons with us to the main square where everyone was throwing water and spraying party foam at each other. We didn’t want to take our cameras to the square but this is how I looked when we got back.
Here is an example of Inca stonework in Cusco. The Incas were very good at fitting together odd shaped stones so that they fit perfectly – no need for mortar. This made their buildings very strong, beautiful and earthquake proof.

More Inca stonework at one of the ruins outside of Cusco. I was always impressed at how well the Inca buildings morphed with the natural rocks of the mountains.

 Machu Picchu

We took the poor-man’s route to Machu Picchu. To do this we took a 6 hour bus ride and then walked 2 hours along the train tracks to the tourist town of Aguas Calientes. Then we stayed overnight in Aguas Calientes and headed out at 4:30 am the next morning to give ourselves enough time to climb the Inca steps and reach Machu Picchu before sunrise. We spent all day at the ruins and then stayed overnight again in Aguas Calientes. It was really nice to have so much time to spend at the ruins. We did part of a guided tour in the morning and then spent 4 hours walking up and around Wayna Picchu (the small mountain beside the ruins). This was one of my favourite parts of the day because we got to walk on our own through beautiful Inca trails and hang out at some out-of-the-way Inca ruins. 
Walking beside the train track on our way to Machu Picchu

Our first view of Machu Picchu. This is my favourite picture of the 3 of us from the trip. Look at how excited Matt is to be awake before 7am! (Wayna Picchu is the mountains above Dylan's head)

View of the valley from the top of Wayna Picchu

It was pretty cloudy when we were at the top of Wayna Picchu but we did manage to see the ruins bellow us every once and a while.

This is part of the Inca trail that we walked to get around Wayna Picchu. There were so many stone steps! By the end of this day we were all wishing there was such a thing as Inca escalators or sip lines instead.

Exploring the Inca ruins around the Temple of the Moon on the far side of Wayna Picchu.

More Inca ruins
Matt in his Inca couch (at the Temple of the Moon)
My personal favourite picture of Machu Picchu. You can really see how the ancient town is hidden at the top of the mountain. On our way to Machu Picchu we walked along the side of the river you can see in this picture and we never noticed the ruins up above us. This is certainly the most spectacular location for ruins that I have ever seen.


All of us at the famous postcard view of Machu Picchu.

Everyone and their llama has a picture of themselves at this place.


The Sacred Valley

The sacred Valley is the name of the area near Cusco and Machu Picchu where many small Inca ruins and towns are. We stayed a couple of nights in the town of Ollantaytambo and spent time exploring the old fort nearby as well as the town itself. 

The entire town of Ollantaytambo felt like an archaeological site. Even the wall of the internet café I visited was made of beautiful Inca stone work. This is the street that our hostel was on, and yes, it too is Inca-made.

A famous battle was fought at this fort where the Incas successfully turned back the Spanish by flooding the valley bellow (fort at Ollantaytambo).
 While we were in the sacred Valley, we also stopped in the town of Pisac. This is where we went on one of my favourtie hikes of the whole trip - up a terraced hilltop to see an Inca temple, Inca fort, and Inca tombs.


We picked up some felt hats at the market in Pisac.

Matt on the top of an old Inca observation tower. The buildings down the side of the hill probably used to be Inca storage houses. 

Dylan and our trusty guide dog, who joined our party in town and stayed with us for the whole hike. 

Dylan standing at the top of the Inca fort. You can see some Inca tarracing in the background.

I love mountains so much!

The walk back down, just before sunset.

Friday, 4 April 2014

The Pacific Coast


I’m sorry that this blog past is over a month late. But better late than never I guess. Here are some pictures from our time on the Pacific Coast of Ecuador and Peru. We spent about a week hanging out in beach towns in Ecuador before busing down the West coast of Peru to Lima.

 Ecuador
We stayed a couple nights at the fishing village of Puerto Lopez. The ceviche was amazing and it was interesting to see the fishermen coming in with their catch in the mornings.

Our first night we got to stay in a tree fort room.
Dylan building a river on the beach at Puerto Lopez
Puerto Lopez was full of cool birds that were trying to steal fish from the fishermen. The captain of this boat is a pelican and his crew are frigates.

We went for a 2 1/2 hour boat trip out to an island to go snorkeling and bird watching. Just looking at the picture of this boat makes me feel sea sick.
On the boat tour we got to see blue footed boobies. These ones were hanging out in the harbor of Puerto Lopez.
On the boat ride back from the island we got to tube on the ocean. 
One day we spent at the nearby National Park Machalilla. It has a series of  beautiful beaches that are each very different from each other. It also has lots of neat sea animals like crabs and sea stars.
At this beach there was smoothed down rock instead of sand.

A sandcastle I built on one of the sandy beaches

We spent a few days relaxing at the beach town of Ayampe. Basically all there was to do there was relax on the beach or surf.
This is the hostel/house we stayed at in Ayampe. It backed onto the beach and we basically had the whole place (plus kitchen) to ourselves.
We all tried surfing
And we even got good enough to stand on our boards every once and a while (this is a picture of Matt).
Peru 
Our journey down the Peruvian Pacific Coast was mostly spent in night buses. But we did stop for a couple days in the dessert city of Chiclayo. This picture is herbs and natural medications at a stall at the Witch's Market there.

We visited the museum of the Lord of Sipan. The discovery of his tomb has been compared to that of Tutankhamun.

There were many archaeological sites to visit around Chiclayo, such as these pre-Incan pyramids.
One of the night buses we took ended up being so classy that Matt got his own coffee maker

We spent one day in Lima in between night buses. While we were there we visited the museum of the Spanish Inquisition. It had really impressive ceilings.

It had really gruesome displays of people being tortured

"No one suspects the Spanish Inquisition!"
Now Dylan and I are on our way back to Lima in a couple of days. We are looking forward to getting a chance to try some of the amazing sea food that Lima is famous for.