well the day after, and I ache like hell, everywhere... but it was worth every groan. After reading much about this unique site, I was determined to visit. After not being able to drag any of my lazy friends out for the 8km walk, I decided to go with a tour group on bike. It was a very smart decision. There were 3 other Austrian kids, none of which spoke english or spanish, and 2 guides, who I hung out with, Kaly and Hugo. We left the office at 930, equipped with bikes, gloves, helmets, and a bag lunch with lots of chocolate goodies! We took the bus from Cusco to Chinchero. After loading all the bikes on top of the bus, we set off in the drizzle for about an hour ride. On board there was a very entertaining young guy who got laughs out of everyone with his magic show and trivia. Claiming to be a theater student, in practice, it was better than the usual ruses I encounter for making money. We get off just past town, and start to cruise through a flat road past houses, farms, the usual beautiful countryside setting. The trail is wide enough for cars, at first, but very rocky, and bumpy. After 5 minutes we stop for our first of several bike repairs... find the part that flew off, attach it back on, and continue on our way. We bike for about 2 hours ascending slightly, staying flat, and gentally cruising through peaceful landscape. It felt good to be huffing and puffing while looking around in admiration. I´d like to attribute the altitude to increased difficulty breathing, but it´s been awhile since I was out on a trail like this. we ate some lunch while fixing the first of 3 flat tires... luckily they were well prepared with all the nec tools, and replacement tubes. My bike was fine, more or less, except the chain kept slipping off the track whenever I would stop pedalling.. I learned to navigate this with frustration, and later in the day, exchanged bikes with one of the guides, to enjoy a much less stressful ride. We reached Moray by 1pm. I must say after all the pictures I had seen of this site, it was incredibly impressive in person. I would have liked to spend more time there.. but we only had about 30 minutes. Moray is a Pre-Incan agricultual experiment. There are 3 huge concentric circular terraces used to grow different crops--vegetables, flowers and fruits. The largest depressions has 15 levels of terraces and a 16 degree temperature change between the lowest and the highest ring (30 meter difference).
Irrigation ditches intricately carved into the terrace walls carefully delivered the needed water. I read that there is anthropologist that believes because of positioning and altitude differences, the terraces could have reproduced climatic conditions in 20 or more different ecological zones of the Inca Empire. This would have allowed Inca officials to predict crop yield from the different parts of their empire each year. Although the terraces date from 100AD or earlier, it is known that when the Incas took over Moray they expanded some of the areas.
Nature created here, what is virutally a greenhouse effect, allowing these civilizations to experiment with different strains of high altitude crops, particularly corn. The smallest circle is known as Nustahispan(which translates into ´where the princess peed´´) a common inca legend that a spring rises because a royal lady once urinated there...
today the terraces are not in use.. they are being preserved, etc, and still used as a spiritual site for shamans and other ritual practices.... but no doubt the farming practices developed here are still in wide use in surrounding farming communities.
From there we continued a rocky downhill 45 minutes through the town of Maras to the salt flats, this being the third time Ive visited them. They are also a pre incan creation, still used today to mine the salt.. using the same basic tools of the old days... from there it was more downhill then a flat streak to the bus station in Urubamba. The ride back to Cusco was about 1 hour, I was exhausted and my body was already cranking up. We got back in the dark... and went our separate ways. overall a def highlight of a day.
