Sacred Valley

Upon our return to Ollantaytambo our van drove us 20 minutes to the Posada del Inca Yucay Hotel located in Yucay where we checked in (see link to the Sacred Valley map). We changed and went out for dinner to "El Huacatay", which was recommended by Luis. Huacatay is a Peruvian herb, which is very popular with local dishes. I think it is part of the black mint family and it has a unique and wonderful taste (almost like basil, but more potent). Alberto grows this in his garden if you want a sample. El Huacatay restaurant is a hole in the wall (as described by Luis) in Urubamba (10 min from the hotel) but the food was outstanding.

The hotel was very nice and it is built and decorated like a small Andean town with a church and everything. But it looks like they have some management problems. Cindy's luggage got full of ants in her room and there was some white powder falling from the ceiling in the outdoor restaurant, some of which was falling in the food. Not very nice. But the rooms were very comfortable and clean and the awesome headboards were the creation of Luis' wife Claudia. The rooms were designed by Luis himself when he was a manager of that hotel a couple of years ago (and the hotel was much better managed).

Our Viajes Pacifico tour guide Dagmar picked us up with our star driver who was the one who didn't bring the Machu Picchu tickets to Cuzco. We had a hard time remembering Dagmar's name and we called her everything, except Dagamar for a while, including Magma, Dogma, Madagascar and even Matilde. She was a good guide although we discovered that if we asked her questions she had much more knowledge than she was voluteering during the regular tour descriptions. One funny moment happened when Lynn asked Dagmar if she was "Vieja del Pacifico" (instead of Viajes del Pacifico), which translates to "the old woman from the Pacific". We started our tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas and we made our first stop in the town of Ollantaytambo where we saw these guinea pigs. This is when Super Mark figured that guinea pigs looked cuter running around that on a plate.

We then went to the Ollantaytambo ruins, which are amazing. We had to climb several terraces all the way to the top, where you can see several unfinished pieces of rock. The Sacred Valley of the Incas runs mostly along the Urubamba River and it has several ruins along the way where the Incas came to rest and vacation while en route to other places.



We then backtracked through Urubamba and Yucay all the way to the town of Pisac. We drove along the Urubamba River and we learned that the Urubamba River starts near the highest point of the Andes crossing in the Arequipa-Cuzco highway at the Vilcanota knot (which we passed en route). We arrived into Pisac where they have some interesting ruins there too, but not as impressive as Chinchero, so concentrated on their famous handicraf market for the sake of time.







We then went in the direction of Cuzco and stopped at Moray, which is the most amazing system of terraces built by the Incas as an agricultural lab in which they could test how various crops fared at different altitudes. Adventure note: on our way to Moray we went to a very narrow dirt road with a steep hill on one side and a steep cliff on the other side. Half way there we ran into a hugely wide tractor coming the other way. We had to backup down the slope until we found a spot where we could go around the trator about 2 milimiters from the cliff, where we heard the famous words "yikes!!" a bit louder than usual from Lynn.

We then continued towards Cuzco and stopped at the town of Chinchero, where there are other ruins with terraces co-mingled with Spanish construction with a plaza, church, bell tower and a small Andean handicraft market. Here we visited a beautiful church with very intricate art, scuptures and detailed paintings on the ceiling (every inch of it). Here is where we learned by questioning Dagmar that this church was the fruits of true labor of love
because this church is very poor and all construction and art was done by the locals with no outside financial help.

A picture anyone? Mike capturing the moment!! After a few more photo snaps we continue our journey to our final city destination for the day, Cuzco!!!!!

We arrived to our wonderful El Libertador Hotel, part of which is built in an old Inca Palace. We were getting ready to go to dinner and, guess what? We ran into Ms. Talkalot and Mrs. Talksolittle. We chatted until there was a split second pause in the story we were hearing and headed out to the Inka Grill for dinner. Excellent food and nice music.