March 1-3, 2022
After a great time in Lima at the start of Margot's Peru trip, we got on a plane and flew an hour and a half to Cusco (also spelled Cuzco). We saw a bit of the city before heading out for a tour.
We had an awesome guide named Edwin for that leg of our vacation. He sang a children's song about llamas that had us cracking up.
We spent a lot of time at Fortress of Sacsayhuaman, a site of some amazing structures. The stones are fit together without any mortar, and they are very old. The Incans were pretty impressive!
Cindy struggled with the stairs at one point, and some young guys offered to help her. She definitely didn't mind!
The next day, we went to Moray where there are Incan ruins. They are in circles, with land at different elevations. It made each one a different microclimate from the other, and it was cool to think about how they farmed and experimented with farming that long ago.
The day just kept on going! We also visited the salt ponds at Maras, where locals farm for salt by using natural salt water from a spring. Our guide, Edwin, grew up in the area and had a lot to tell us. Families earn their living at the ponds, and they are in tune with the land. Edwin was very passionate about all of it, and it really made it a great visit for all of us.
We had another day of tours based in Cusco, and we went to Chinchero where we saw some awesome and old buildings. Then we went to Ollantaytambo and the Living Museum of Yucay, a town where the locals preserve old traditions. It was a gorgeous town, and it was cool to see how the locals did things. We even made an adobe brick. Most of us spent a lot of tourist dollars here -- there were lots of cool things to buy.
We wrapped up our day with a visit to another fortress. Known locally as Ollanta, it was in the town of Ollantaytambo. It was set on rolling hills, with walls of rocks. We were starting to get higher in elevation, and we were all looking forward to seeing Machu Picchu. Stay tuned for Part 3 and that part of the trip!
Even the hotel was nice. We were finally staying in a place that felt more local instead of a big high-rise hotel in a city, and we really liked it. We definitely needed our down time.
