Into the Valley of Inca drove Roger and Dora

Crossing into Peru, we bussed along the edge of Titicaca to Puno for an uneventful night in a hotel near the bus terminal. Come morning, we walked through the regenerating, seemingly 24-hr market and onto the Inka Express – our self-admittedly-touristy route to Cusco.

Spot the man eating the head

Our opinionated guide gave us his perspective on the political and economic problems faced by contemporary Peru (in a nutshell - 'rural people aren't civilised enough') before we stopped for a less controversial tour of Pukara. The Pukarans were a pre-Inca civilisation, whose spent a lot of time carving statues to glorify the collecting of enemy heads and eating of enemy children. Pukara now also sells some of the best coffee in the world, as voted in some competition in San Francisco.

As we entered the top of the valley leading down to Cusco, we enjoyed a brief viewpoint (by now we had seen better) and hit the buffet lunch, serenaded by a traditional band. Dora practiced her French with some French people, and a lone German spent so much time talking he delayed the bus by five minutes, much to the genuine irritation of our guide. 

We then visited some Inca grain houses and an Inca moon temple, where the adobe walls and roof had been partially restored to give a sense of how they looked 600 years ago. Our guide made some questionable links between arbitrary numbers and other arbitrary numbers (e.g. "nine columns, like the number of planets in the solar system...a coincidence?!" (answer: "yes")), and we then moved on to a Catholic church built, and painted, to scare locals into backing the bible (alongside some earlier, pretty Jesuit murals). 

We also popped into a deformed skull museum; our guide tried to convince us that, rather than the result of ceremonial head binding/shaping (the general consensus), the skulls could belong to aliens (hmm). We nodded politely, being British.

Cusco

Once deposited in Cusco, we found our AirBnB, collected and cooked some staples, did some washing and slept.

Rested, a short steep walk took us up to Sacsayhuamán, the Inca fortress that overlooks and protects Cusco, and is meant to be the teeth of the giant leopard that the city represents. 

Sacsayhuaman, with Cusco behind

We were impressed (or in Dora's case, re-impressed, given her visit 14 years ago) by the tightly-fitted huge stones. We were less impressed by the failure of an Inca army several thousand strong to defend the fortress against a few hundred Spaniards. 

History mulled, it was time for some light entertainment on the Inca slides and exploring the ceremonial cave system. On to another of the sacred sites in the string out from Cusco the, this time with a rock that looks like a frog/puma (depending on the angle and un-photographable). 

Then the fun game of flagging down the right collectivo to get us into to the Sacred Valley, to the town and Inca citadel of Pisac.

Pisac is a nice town, with market-infested alleyways and pleasant Western-style cafes (we had fantastic grilled llama loin sandwiches and bean chilli followed by a melt-in-the-middle chocolate pudding that almost made us too late to explore the Inca ruins).

Above Pisac town sits a huge Inca settlement, with terraced fields giving way to housing, forts, a sun temple and a lookout point. The climb was fairly fun, as we walked alongside a risk-averse Brazilian ("we better get off the mountain before it rains, or we could die") who told us all about his complex family and business networks. Stunning views drunken in, it was back to the bottom for a collectivo (small bus with relaxed safety standards) home, where a cheap pizza restaurant awaited. 

Note the rainclouds the Brazilian was concerned about, and the height from the town

Typical Cusco street, with colonial
architecture atop Inca ruins

Tuesday was 'mooch-around-Cusco-day'. Mooching commenced with a frustrating search around the Cathedral for any of the unmissable artefacts mentioned in the guide book. It turns out they had randomly moved and removed things, but we managed to track down a mural of the town during a devastating earthquake, and some horrifying crucification paintings from the famous Cusquena school of art. 

The 12-sided rock in an Inca wall. Very impressive.

Qurikancha from the gardens, note the dark
grey Inca wall and lighter Spanish walls on top

Next stop, shopping and admiring Inca stonework, then the Inca palace-turned-cathedral of Qurikancha. It was a bit 'meh', having being taken over by tourist crowds (from which we saw ourselves entirely removed), and being much less impressive than the ruins from the previous day. 

Inside Qurikancha - spot the Inca building in the cloisters

At my insistence, we decamped to the Museo Chocolate, where we learned that Peru doesn't actually produce much chocolate at all. That didn't stop me enjoying a 'traditional' Willy Wonka hot drink though. We then foraged for dinner at the San Pedro market, acquiring some white potato-like things that we thought were rather tasteless, but which we later learned require an overnight soaking to make them edible. 

Wednesday was 'explore-another-bit-of-the-Sacred Valley-day'. We sat in a stationary Collectivo for a bit, until we concluded it wasn't going anywhere fast. A taxi negotiation saw us deposited near the circular terraces of Moray, which some think the Incas used to experiment with different crop types (there is a 5 degree temperature gradient between the top and bottom slopes). 

Farming with an ox-drawn plough

Suitably impressed, we gambled (I've always wanted to use that word) over to the village of Maras, where we were accosted by some waitresses and encouraged to enjoy spaghetti bolognese - we were easily convinced - and a glass of something free, fruity and very flat.

The rest of our gamble (I'm probably over-using it now) took us down to the Salineras de Maras Salt Pans and to the main valley road. 


We jumped in the next Collectivo, where I almost sat on a German backpacker who had adopted a critically injured stray dog to nurse it back to health. While I was my usual sympathetic self (and Dora pretended she didn't mind standing up), I did think South America had more than enough stray dogs, but kept my thoughts to myself. 

We were now in Ollantaytambo, holding an impressive fortress, an impressive number of tourists, and a nice viewpoint where the Incas used to whip misbehaving slaves (apparently). The town itself was lovely once you escaped from the visitors, mostly because of an impressive drainage system that means you are rarely far away from a babbling brook/tiny canal. 

Back in Cusco we headed straight to a guidebook-recommended restaurant looking over the main square, sampling Peru's national drink (Pisco Sours Classico) and Cusquena Beer (better than Cusquena paintings).

Ollantaytambo, at the heart of the Sacred Valley

On Thursday we mostly prepared for the Inca Trail: logistically (lots of packing), intellectually (a visit to the Machu Pichu museum, and a giant statue of an Inca warrior) and digestively (an amazing sandwich at the Coffee Museum). We then had our evening briefing from the guide, before an early night for our 'morning' pick up (5am is NOT 'morning').