The Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu

Karisti has been visiting from London since last Monday and it has been great to have her here. I had Thursday and Friday off from school, so we went to Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu. My friend Reada had been to MP twice over Christmas break (she had lots of visitors) and she gave us great advice about what to see and where to stay. She also hooked us up with a great driver named Jose. He didn't speak any English, but he was very patient with my Spanish and it was nice to be able to practice it so much.

We started the trip in Cusco and then drove through the Sacred Valley to Ollantaytambo. The ruins at Ollantaytambo are incredible. They sit right on the edge of the little town and it was cool to see them from everywhere. We hiked up to near the top of the ruins and had a great view of the town and the valley. Here we are walking along the ruins.

The most amazing ruin was the one at Moray. The Incas built this site as an agricultural experiment. They planted different crops on different levels to see what altitude was best for growing. The site is incredible and this picture doesn't even do it justice. The bowl it sits in is enormous and it is amazing to stand at the top and look down into it. It is all laid out so perfectly and so logically. As our driver Jose said, the Incas really were so much smarter than us. They figured out all these things, just using the resources they had. And they thrived for hundreds of years, developing a very advanced culture.

Though I had been to Machu Picchu before, this trip was even more amazing than the first. We spent the night before in Aguas Calientes (Karisti likes to remind me that we were in hot water on the trip), which is the town at the base of the mountain Machu Picchu is on. Because we had spent the night in AC and didn't have to take the train in from somewhere else in the morning, we were able to get on one of the first buses up to MP Saturday morning. We were at MP by 8am and it was amazing! The sun was shining, but there were still clouds covering some of the mountains. It made for beautiful light and some incredible photos of MP. Standing up above the site and looking down on the entire complex is one of the most overwhelming experiences. It is definitely the most amazing place I have ever seen in my life and I'm sure I will never stop being blown away by it. What the Incas created and the way it has been preserved is just incredible. We spent about 3 hours wandering around the site and managed to pretty much walk through the entire thing. We tagged onto the end of tour groups in English every once and a while to hear the guides were explaining, but for most of it we just wandered around, checking out the things that looked interesting to us.

We were back down in Aguas Calientes by noon, happily eating Mexican food and watching it rain, pleased with ourselves for getting up to MP early and back down before the rain that tends to happen there every afternoon. We took the afternoon train back to Ollantaytambo, where Jose picked us up and drove us back to Cusco. We had a very yummy dinner at this great place called Jack's that I highly recommend to anyone going to Cusco, and flew back to Lima Sunday morning. Overall, a fabulous trip. Everything went perfectly - trains, driver, weather, everything. It couldn't have been a better trip. It was great to be able to share Machu Picchu with Karisti and she said over and over how much she loved it. It was a wonderful experience!

Here is the link to all of my photos on Picassa web albums if you are interested in checking them out:

Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley with Karisti