Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru (Wednesday, December 27th, 2017)

Since we left Ecuador yesterday and moved on to a new country today, we will meet a new tour guide who will now show us the ins and outs of Peru.

We had breakfast at the hotel, Costa Del Sol, in their big, beautiful dining room, and met our new tour director Alvaro.  

He told us that he isn't very familiar with Lima, but he grew up in Machu Picchu and currently lives in the mountain town of Cuzco, Peru.  He seems very excited about the journey we have ahead of us, so of course it makes us excited too!  

We have another flight this morning to get us off the coast and back up into the Andes mountains, only this time in the country of Peru.  The Lima airport is very big, we wandered through a maze of shops and restaurants for 10 minutes before finally coming to the security gates.

Off we go, one more time.  The flight to Cuzco was a short one, but coming into Cuzco was an experience!  The airport is right in the center of town, the only flat spot in these mountains.  We literally had to wind through the mountains as we made our approach to land.  It was quite exciting!  The City of Cuzco was built by the Incas.  It is the oldest living city in the Americas, at over 3000 years old, and now has a population of 700,000 today.

Upon our arrival in Cuzco, we got onto our next bus, with our new bus driver Rimbar and enjoyed a scenic drive to Pisac Village.  Cuzco is at 11,400 feet, and the mountain pass we will drive over to get to the Pisac Village is over 12,000 feet.  Our new tour guide is recommending that everyone drink lots of water to avoid altitude sickness, and supposedly coca helps as well.  A lot of people use these coca candies to ward off altitude sickness.

The streets of Cuzco are a mix of old and new.

And a lot of the people in Cuzco still wear the traditional dress of Peru.  They don't do it for the tourists, they wear it because they like it.  I think she's about to lose her baby!

It was only a short drive to get to the edge of town and start heading up the mountain that would eventually lead us into the Sacred Valley of the Incas.  There is a lot of farming in these mountains, even though we are over 11,000 feet.  It's pretty amazing.

The soccer field for this region.  Alvaro said that teams don't like to visit here because it is too high.

As we climbed the mountain, the views were spectacular.

The mix of old and new is interesting to see.

We stopped at an overlook with spectacular views at the top of the mountain.

As we descended into the Pisac Village, we stopped at a silver shop where they showed us how they made quality silver using a combination of silver and bronze, and allowed us to stroll through isle after isle of silver wares. Peru is the number one silver producer in the world.

Some of the machinery they use for making silver.

Many different types of stones and shells are used in their silver wares.

The finished products are beautiful, but silver isn't really my thing, so Steve lucked out and got off cheap.

They also served us our first taste of coca tea.  It tastes a lot like green tea.  It was pretty good. 

Then we went across the street to a little empanada shop, where we bought our lunch.

Then we strolled through the cobblestone streets of the Pisac handicraft market where they sell more local goods than you can ever imagine.  It was so much fun to just stroll the streets and talk to the local vendors.  The colors, cobblestones and beautiful mountain surroundings made this market a very memorable experience.  And this market had everything alpaca that you could ever want.

So much of this town was built by the Incas and is still used today.  It is an amazing merging of old and new.

Another empanada shop in the heart of the Pisac Market.  

All of the walkways in this market are cobblestone.

But some of the cobblestones are turned on end.  This is not comfortable to walk on.

We never did try an alpaca burger, but later in the trip we tried some alpaca k-bobs, which were very tasty!

Look at the setting of this beautiful market.  It is breath taking!

My feet were really tired when we got through this market from the up-ended cobblestones.

But even so, we enjoyed it thoroughly!

Inca terraces in the background.  They are everywhere in the sacred valley!  Even though they are protected by UNESCO, many of them are still used for farming even today.

The Sacred Valley has a micro climate, keeping it warm year round.  It is located on the Urubamba River, in the Buccanota Mountain range.  It has rich soil which produces four crops per year, and the entire valley is full of archaeological remains.  

They believe that the Inca's settled here because of this micro climate environment.  The Incas used to have very sophisticated irrigation systems for the farming terraces, but the current residents of this valley can not figure out how to replicate them, so many of the higher farming terraces are now unused.

In the late afternoon we transferred to our hotel in the Sacred Valley.  At the hotel we had an orientation meeting with our tour manager followed by a welcome dinner.

Our hotel was called Aranwa Sacred Valley, and was located very close to the Urubamba River, in the middle of nowhere.  I can't imagine how people find this place, but it is worth looking for.  It is gorgeous.  I'll give you a quick tour.

The hotel lobby.

The hotel is very spread out, "requiring" you to enjoy the grounds as you make your way to your room.

Our room.

The view from our room.

Then we made our way over to our oldest daughter and son (in-laws) room.

Our oldest daughter and son (in-laws) room.  Fit for a king and queen!

After exploring the grounds of the hotel for awhile, it was time for dinner.  This is our view of the Urubamba River as we drove over it on our way to the little village of Yucay.

Dinner was at a little restaurant called Hacienda Puka Punku.

They served a local beer that is brewed in Cuzco called Cusqueno.  It was very tasty, but they also had a dark beer that was out of this world!

A local musician came to entertain us during dinner.  He was very talented!  Of course, Steve just had to have a CD he was selling!

These were beef heart kabobs that Steve ordered as an appetizer.  So Good!

After a fabulous dinner, we headed back to Aranwa Sared Valley Hotel for a leisurely evening in our beautiful rooms!  We love this place, and are so excited to see what adventure tomorrow holds for us!