April 28th, 2019
Today we had to get up at 5:30am for our Sacred Valley tour. I slept horribly (like you sleep when you have a cold) and told Brendan that I barely felt good enough to even go on the tour. I would of course been massively disappointed if I missed it, so I pulled it together just enough to go downstairs and wait for the shuttle. I think I had a GI bug on top of an upper respiratory virus. Since yesterday, I had a massive headache that wouldn’t go away with any pharmaceutical in the large assortment of “emergency” meds I gathered before leaving home. We have also been adjusting to the altitude of Cusco at 11,000 feet, and I thought my headache might be from that.
Later on in the day, I realized since I had been sick and resting the last few days I had not drank any caffeine. I hate to admit it, but this last year with finishing school and all the cramming I did, I got myself addicted to caffeine. It’s hard for me to tell though because it is not a ritual for me. I don’t get up and have a morning cup of coffee or always an afternoon tea or anything like that. But, usually at some point during the day or at least every other day, I have something that is caffeinated. While on this trip, I have been drinking more soda than I ever have in my life, which is not good I know. Anyway, once the caffeine thing dawned on me, Brendan got me a soda and my headache went away after lunch.
The Sacred Valley day tour had many stops and we saw a LOT in one day. We first stopped at a nature reserve where there was a pretty lake and views of the Andes. There were also a couple of alpacas we got pictures with while we sipped coca tea, which is known to help void any altitude affects.
The next stop we made was in a village where we got to watch how the Incas make their beautiful textiles and get the vibrant colors. We saw a demonstration of them spinning the wool from the alpaca and how they dye it using different plants. The colors they get from the plants are amazing.
We then went to an archeologic site in Chinchero to see a Catholic Church that was constructed over an Inca place of worship in the early 1500s when the Spaniards arrived and took over. There were not any photos allowed inside the Church, but it was pretty impressive, and you can still see the original Inca foundation that the Catholic Church was built over. We also saw some farming terraces and learned a little bit about all the potatoes that are grown in this region. We learned how they dehydrate potatoes and make them have a shelf life of 20 years! This is a very important agricultural crop for them.
Afterwards, we went to Moray where they have the amazing circular crop terraces. We learned a little bit about this and how these different levels create a mini greenhouses effect and facilitate the growth of different crops. It was really beautiful.
After Moray we went to the salt mines. They have over 4000 salt pools. The whole harvesting system is quite amazing. There are 600 families that are the owners of these pools who run them and harvest all the salt. They say the Inca salt is just as good as the Himalayan salt and it can also be pink in color which is the finest quality salt and has 40 minerals in it. They used to pay people in salt and this is where we get the word “salary” from, as the Spanish word for salt is “sal”.
We then stopped for a nice buffet lunch. Even though I haven’t been able to eat much with my stomach bug, it was good to get some food as I was really struggling by that point. I just felt so worn down. Lunch was good and like I said, it was after this and another soda that my headache finally went away which was a huge relief. After lunch we went to another archeologic site in the last original Inca town called Ollantaytambo. There were many ruins here and it was cool to see some of the structures that were built right into the mountains. It was also cool to see the stone walls the Incas built without any mortar but just with placing the stones perfectly together with the perfect tight fit. They had some of the original Inca roads with small waterways going through them. This was the first time I opted not to go up a big bunch of stairs to get to the top of something. I just wasn’t feeling good enough and didn’t want to push it. So, Brendan went up and got some pictures while I admired the ruins and structures from below sitting on a rock.
After that town we went to Pisaq (there are two Pisaqs here; one is the Inca Pisaq high in the mountains and then there is a Spanish Pisac, from when they came and established a town in the valley). The Inca Pisaq might have been my favorite place of the day. It was absolutely beautiful. We were told the Incas always built their cities so high because Peru has 6 months of rain and 6 months of dry season. During the rainy season the valleys would always flood so they always built high.
After this we stopped at the Spanish Pisaq and saw how silver was made into jewelry. They are a big producer of silver. Afterwards, we went back to Cusco and were dropped off around 7:30pm. It was a 13 hour day from when we left. I loved everything we saw and was thankful this was the least strenuous trip of all our activities, but I still struggled today quite a bit by not feeling well. I was becoming increasingly worried if I was going to have the strength for tomorrow and then for the 5-day Salkantay Trail. Tomorrow is another day trip where we hike to view Rainbow mountain and the summit is 17,000 feet! The hike is about 2 hours and is labeled “difficult” because of the altitude and the steep incline at the top. I knew if I felt like I did today I would not be able to do it. So, we got back to the hotel around 8pm and I went right to bed praying to wake up better as we set our alarm for 3:30am.