On the Loose in South America

Apologies for the delay in updates, as I have been rather busy! Wednesday, our first day in Cusco, was spent touring the Sacred Valley. This included a visit to the small indigenous market town of Pisaq, where the interesting market and pretty surrounding valleys far surpassed the tragic toilets (which I had to pay for!). The following stop was outside Pisaq, where we had our first ´Inca Ruin´ experience (there were many more to come!). The well-maintained and largely intact ruins sat atop a hill about 3500 metres above sea level (rather chilly!). We were able to see the layout of the village, including the rooms housing the most intelligent and and attractive virgins that the Inca (King) selected to produce heirs to the throne. There were also sacred bathing rooms, the room of the Inca, and those smaller rooms of labourers and workers etc. The Incas, which ruled much of South America between 1430 to 1530, were a fascinating, intelligent, and resourceful bunch. DOnt have the time now, but I will write a journal entry explaining some of their culture at a later stage. This visit was followed by a smorgas borad lunch at a local village, which was, to my suprise, really quite decent! Following this we headed to more Inca ruins at Ollantaytambo. Planted once again on the peak of a mountain, these were not so easy to reach, and the endless steps really tested my fitness! Was a fascinating visit though, and learnt more of the Inca culture. Lastly was a visit to Chinchero, which had an incredible cathedral that was a blend of Inca and Catholic religions (which became intertwined when the Spanish conquered the Incas). An example of this was the paintings of Christ, that featured a rather ´tanned´christ on the cross, with a bright, Inca style skirt! The rest of the church was decorated with similar objects, along with a ridiculous amount of gold plating - The excessive use of gold looked rather kitschy and OTT for me, but I suppose it was a sign of wealth, and I wouldnt be opposed to having such quantities of gold at my disposal! We then returned to Cusco with our bilingual guide (When I say bilingual, I mean more spanish and spanglish- speaking. It was fine for me, as I could understand the spnish, but not great for my parents; I frequently had to translate his Spanglish into English for them!). He was also a rather outspoken guide, and was not impressed with me when I took a photo of a local women, and paid her about 30cents for it. Apparently, whilst I was taking the photo, he was telling the rest of the tour how such photography encourages the women and children to be lazy, and is an embarassment to his culture. Woops! That evening, we dined on another ´Turistico´ menu in the centre of Cusco, which again proved ridiculously good value!