Machu Picchu: been there, done that, bought the t-shirt

YESTERDAY I WENT TO MACHU PICCHU!!!

But all in good time, gentle reader. Machu Picchu is the end of today's story, not the beginning.

Yes, I know - it has been ages since I provided a travel update, and I apologize both for the lack and for the subsequent length of today's post. The good news is that data collection has been going well and I have been squeezing in as much touristy goodness as possible on the weekends!

So let's backtrack a bit, shall we? My last update occurred only a few days before mi cumpleanos - I celebrated my birthday with a tastily expensive (expensively tasty?) dinner at the Inka Grill on the Plaza de Armas: causa Peruana, aji de gallina, ponderaciones con manjar de yemas, y un pisco sour (por supuesto!). Yum. I figure spending one's birthday alone in a foreign country is just cause for a bit of a splurge.

Pikillacta

Last weekend, I blitzkrieged my way through a hefty chunk of the Valle Sagrada, visiting Pikillacta, Tipon, Moray, Maras, and Ollantaytambo. Pikillacta and Tipon are two sites east of Cusco, so I visited both on a single trip last Saturday. Finding the right place to catch the bus out of town was a bit of a trial (to be fair, there are multiple ways to get there), but I eventually found the spot where the large buses leave for Urcos (it's on Avenida de la Cultura, right near the paradero for the hospital in case you're wondering). There isn't a true stop for Pikillacta, so I asked the fare guy if the driver could drop me off near the entrance.

The "5th Ave" of Pikillacta,
according to Carlos

Pikillacta is one of the only large-scale pre-Inca set of ruins in the Sacred Valley; it was built by the Wari culture and shows a high degree of urban planning for the time period. I basically had the ruins to myself; a small tour group was leaving as I arrived, and a middle-aged German couple got there when I was just about done. After strolling around the site, I headed back out to the main road to flag down a bus returning from Urcos to take me back towards Cusco so I could stop off at Tipon. Funnily enough, I actually ended up catching the bus with the same driver/fare guy. They dropped me off a short ways down the road in the town of Tipon (famous for oven-baked guinea pig).

Tipon

Tipon - stone bridge path with water channel

Now, the ruins at Tipon are a good 3 mile (5 km) uphill hike from the city; most people hire a taxi to take them up to the site. Or, they rent a jeep to tour all the site like the German couple (they passed me on the road). Here's a piece of advice: if you're going to forego the taxi ride, make sure you have a more fortifying lunch than a cheese sandwich and a pack of galletas. Man was I tired and grouchy hiking up to Tipon! (btdubs, this was the day that prompted my FB rant about the Inca building everything on the top of hard-to-access mountains...). In any case, I eventually made it to the entrance and got to check out the site, which is famous for its ornamental waterfalls and huge agricultural terraces. The water channels run throughout the entire site on a scale not seen at any other Inca complex. After MORE stone steps and hiking around the site itself, I was pretty done for the day and decided to take a taxi down the mountain. Yes, yes, I realize I did that backwards. The driver - a kid barely old enough to drive, I swear - tried to charge me the coming-up-the-mountain price. When I laughed and told him walking was free, he cut the fare in half and took me back to the main road where I caught another bus back to Cusco.

Salineras de Maras

After sleep and a big breakfast I was ready to resume my adventures. I had initially planned to visit Ollantaytambo and Chinchero, but my new airbnb host, Carlos, convinced me that Moray was much more interesting than Chincero (Carlos and his wife Jackie are awesome - Carlos loves history and we've had many great Spanglish discussions about evolution, archaeology, and history), so I revamped my plans. I had read about Moray and it did sound cool, but I was a little iffy about getting there because it's pretty far off the beaten track. Basically, I got on a bus in Cusco bound for Urubamba and asked them to drop me off at the desvio a Maras (detour to Maras; props to my guidebook for telling me how to do this), and at this little crossroads luckily there were a couple of taxis waiting. The only way to get to Moray is via taxi and because it's in the middle of nowhere the taxi has to wait for you, so I haggled for a bit with a driver and we eventually settled on a price. He also suggested a visit to the Salineras de Maras (really cool salt mines), and I'm glad I took him up on it because they were very interesting! It's a working mine, and apparently the salt from here is now very trendy in Lima both in terms of cooking and bath salts.

The water running through
 the salt mines is warm!

Me @ Salineras de Maras

Moray

After the salt mines we continued on to Moray, which is thought to have been a place where the Inca conducted agricultural experiments. It has two large sets of round agricultural terraces, and instead of being built into the sides of mountains like the other terraces, these appear to have been deliberately dug down into the valley. There is a large temperature differential between the layers, and different crops do better at different levels. Kudos to Carlos for the recommendation!

Llama head post thingy!

Next it was back to the crossroads to catch a bus to Urubamba. I lucked out and caught one that was going all the way on to Ollantaytambo. Ollanta, as it is called by the locals, is the last stop via public transportation before people grab the train to Machu Picchu, so it's starting to get fairly built up. The large set of ruins at Ollantaytambo was quite bustling with tourists; from the site you can see another set of ruins across the city and I asked a guide if it was possible to hike up those. He said it was called Pinkyullana, and yes it was, so after checking out the Ollanta ruins, I did (much less crowded, and free!).

Ollantaytambo

More Ollanta

Ollanta mountain pass

Pinkyulluna

Well, with the risk of this post spiraling out of control (plus it's past my bedtime), I'm going to cut myself off here and make this one a two-part-er.

"But, Emily, you didn't even get to Machu Picchu yet!"

Okay, here's a teaser...