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Our guide Alvaro took pride in showing us the sights in his hometown of Cuzco, and the villages along the sacred valley of the Urubamba River.
The valley of the Urubamba is beautiful. When you first drive down from Cusco into it, you see green cultivated land on all sides, with terraces dating to the Inca times climbing the sides of the mountains. If you've just flown over rank after rank of the brown altiplano of the Andes, you're particularly struck with how different this is.
The plan that OAT sticks to, which lands you in Cusco but immediately takes you down a couple of thousand feet to the Valley, is a good one to get you gradually acclimated to the altitude. We were plied with coca tea from the minute we arrived in Cusco - a quick stop at the hotel we'd later return to - and then taken down the valley gradually. We stopped at a llama/alpaca farm and got our first taste of the beautifully woven woolens. We stopped at an overlook and took our first pictures of women and kids in Inca costume, shyly - this time! - accepting our soles for posing for pictures. We visited the towns of Pisac and Ollantaytambo, and later the fortress of Sacsayhuaman. We went to craft shops and sweater factories, we went white-water rafting, visited a school, and participated in a moving curandero ceremony.
Skeptic that I am, I was wary of the "experiences" promised for the group tour. But they were great! I enjoyed them and wouldn't have been able to have them on my own. All in all, we had a broad and enjoyable introduction to the entire area.
Driving into the Sacred Valley we were impressed with its beauty and the matter-of-fact people going about their daily lives. After a visit to a llama/alpaca farm, we settled into the Incaland Hotel, a lovely place to recover from any altitude sickness.
Our first Inca ruin, Pisac is up the hill from the town and its fancy market. And guinea pig castle. Fortunately for this slightly agoraphobic traveller, it was not market day. On the terraces, a pan pipe echoed faintly. When we got to the musician, he offered his CD for sale!
Like Pisac, Ollantaytambo is an ancient town, with Incan walls and friendly villagers, abutted by impressive Incan ruins. The intrepid Bill made it to the top, but I was content to look up! On the way back we stopped at a chicheria where we tasted the corn homebrew, saw many kinds of potatoes and other root vegetables, and Ray tried his hand at getting a coin in the "sapu" or frog's mouth. Finally late in the day we dined with the promised local family, who gave us a ceremonial glimpse of a guinea pig with pepper in mouth, later serving us guinea pig stew. Of course, it tasted like chicken.
And eating guinea pig in a private home, and a little girl playing with her barbie doll, etc etc etc...
Around Cusco
Around Cusco
Start at this link, our Hotel Don Carlos. Cusco is a pretty city, and skies are blue here. Tourism has meant that there are many, many beggars or people selling small curios, very much "in your face." And that was disappointing. Because we came to Cusco at the end of our tour, after going to the towns along the Urubamba River, and to Machu Picchu, where there was active selling in the markets but not much in the streets, I found it disconcerting to always be avoiding the vendors and beggars. One old lady would hold her hat out for a donation and bat you with it if you didn't produce.
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