Sunday, September 6, 2015

After a buffet breakfast at the hotel, Wilson and a new driver Julio meet us at the hotel. Our first stop is Ollantaytambo (9,190), considered a living Incan village as the people continue to follow traditional methods of living and farming. We climbed the ruins to the Temple of the Sun and enjoyed the view, but not the climb up or down! Back in the car and we drive for some time up the mountain on a dirt road climbing out of the Sacred Valley to Moray (11,500). Here we see (from above) the circular terraced fields that are believed to be where the Inca experimented with different crops that would grow at different elevations. Their experiments resulted in over 5,000 varieties of potatoes and the corn with the huge kernels that are still farmed in Peru today. Another dirt road takes us to the Salinas de Maras pre-Incan salt ponds where local people still channel a small, salty streamlet that flows out of the mountain into 3,000 man-made ponds over the hillside and is left to evaporate leaving behind the salt. We backtrack to the town of Chinchero (12,375) for a traditional Sunday market where we see a very interesting demonstration of weaving, from the raw wool (alpaca, llama or sheep), to making thread, to dyeing from various natural materials to weaving. Kathy got a cute Peruvian hat and fingerless gloves there. We are then back to the hotel for a horse show and a very late lunch. We have an evening of leisure at the hotel.

The Inca built large storage warehouses high on the canyon walls so they enjoy natural refrigeration

Ollantaytambo

Looking down at Ollantaytambo

Interlocking giant stones; the knobs may have been useful in the process of moving the stones from the quarry a few miles across the Urubamba River

The happy couple sharing a doorway

The Ollantaytambo Temple of the Sun

The terraced agricultural land at Moray;
it may have been an Incan experimental agricultural site

Rocks built to stick out from the terraces used as stairs

Looking down at Moray

High dessert 

With some local kids

Local traffic jam

Shopping for fabric at the Chinchero market

Flowers at the market

Typical Andean foods: over 3,000 varieties of potatoes (fresh and dried), large kernel corn, quinoa

Fruits brought in from the jungle

We saw a demonstration of how alpaca wool is spun and dyed

Dyeing alpaca wool

Weaving the dyed thread

A variety of fabric woven by our hosts

The salt ponds of Salinas de Maras

Kathy exploring the salt ponds

At lunch at the Sol y Luna we enjoyed a horse show and a dancing demonstration