We arranged a private tour throughout the secret valley through ton of phone calls that I did while organizing this trip, but honestly in the ‘Plaza de Armas’ (down town Cusco) there are at least a dozen little companies that sell you this tours, we had a limited time so we did not have time to mess with a big group of people and we decided to use a person that a few hotels recommended us. Thomas (the guide) picked us up at 8am at the hotel and started our driving tour to the secret valley, to be honest we should had spent more time here ( at least 2 days), because the entire valley has multiple archeological sites, salt mines a huge market, charming little towns and so on than just a few hours can NOT possible cover that, especially considering that every site requires a hike, a climb and a little informal market to wander around, but because our limited time we only stop in Pisac and in Ollyantatambo. Before Pisac, Thomas mentioned a few highlights along the way like a refuge for rescue wild life and Condors and a cultural center were they have Lamas, Alpacas, Acunas, that shows visitors how the Natives work the textiles from the wool of this extremely cute animals (o my God with the lashes!!) we had no idea but they use ‘chinchilla’ (Mexican name use for the insect that grows in the prickle pear plant that gives and absolutely beautiful red color), they also use a huge variety of plans for the other colors that they just boil with the wool in their traditional way (clay pots and wood stove fires), there are several artisans there working their textiles, very interesting and colorful, of course the highlight of the place are the animals, as long as you feed them they gladly pose for pictures, we had never really seen any of this animals in person and were surprise on how agile, and ‘simpaticas’ they are, they are from the family of the camels so their faces are quite similar but cuter (the Lashes for God Sake!!! I love them).
After this we kept driving through Pisac, the views going downhill from Cusco to the sacred valley are breathtaking, the Urubamba river crosses the valley from side to side and because the valley is not really very wide we felt like driving inside a canyon, the mountains in both sides of the narrow highway are for the most part vertical walls and the valley is covered with corn fields at both sides of the river and highway. Everything is green and even when the area is very rural and poor it has an undeniable charm. Our first stop was the archeological site of Pisac up in the mountain (the town is in the valley), to get to the site we drove in a narrow winding road up hill, a little scary since we just had an accident in a road very similar to this one in Mexico, got there in one piece though!; pay our ticket and started walking, as you enter the site in a narrow pass boarding a vertical mountain at first it seemed like wasn’t much… what we didn’t knew was that this was like the lower homes, then we bent to the right around the mountain and what opened to us to was nothing short to EXTRAORDINARY! I really have no words to describe it (see pictures below) the place seems impossible to be built so many centuries ago with no heavy equipment… Hey! I’m an architect and I know what it takes to build anything and believe me, it’s hard not to think in Aliens when you see these structures up in this crazy rugged hills looking so majestic, the structures are absolutely phenomenal, they are mostly stone of different sized but they all fit together like Legos and had withstand centuries of earthquakes, rain, wind, wars and human stupidity in general, the simplicity of the architecture denotes somethings that it can only be called ‘class’ in my opinion and following the ‘Feng shui’ philosophy of the ‘less is better’ this place could be the epitome of that! they mastered the concept well (if not invented) to the maximum, the minimalistic approach to their buildings is absolutely beautiful, is basically all stone work in it most brutal way, different from other cultures like the Mayans or Aztecs, there are no sculptures, no carvings, or any other decorations or adornments anywhere, is just the structures in its basic form-function relationship, all oriented in ways that allow the sun to warm their home and the wind to vent-cool them down, their doorways and windows are for the most part trapezoidal with a big stone lintel, this is part of their architectural character and for the most part is followed through all their structures all around Peru. Pisco site is another up-downhill fortress that requires some effort (if not ‘a lot of effort’) to explore, you cannot be distracted when you hike it up or down or you can at least twist an ankle, but trust me you can also get killed on a fall here very easy, the place is exiting and invigorating, it feels like an accomplishment just to get to the top. We thought it cannot get better than this but then again, we haven’t been in Machu Picchu yet! We explored the site as fast as we could considering that we just got into a car accident days before in Mexico and we were in pain (well mostly I was in pain because Bryan is like a rock).
We left the site and found Thomas close to the entry waiting for us to keep going; after seeing how long it took us to enjoy this incredible place we opted not to visit the market in Pisac town with the goal of make it on time to Ollyantantambo and visit the archeological site, however by the time we left Pisca we were starving; along the way were several little restaurants (that did not seem to bad) that sell Cuy (guinea pig), this is a traditional dish that the Peruvian people only eat on special occasions, we asked Thomas if this place was good, he said yes so we stop and tried the Cuy. For the most part it was kind of sad, considering that they have a little space where they have a few of them looking all sweet and adorable, not far from that they also have this rudimentary fire rotisserie were they have them all in sticks (like a chicken… just these are a guinea pigs on a stick), but we say that we will try them and so we did!… they taste almost like chicken, not to meaty but not bad; we left feeling adventurous, proud of trying something so exotic, Bryan (my Goat) was perfectly fine, but within 20 minutes of us leaving the restaurant I started with stomach ache. By the time we made it to Ollyantantambo I had a horrible stomach ache, by then we only had 1.5 hour to get into our train to Machu Picchu, so we decided to only walk around the very charming town and not visit the fortress. To be honest you need like 2-3 hours on this site and requires to be on ‘top-shelf-health’ to do it (please see pictures) the site is so impressive that even if we had have the time to do it I honestly doubt I could have make it, most of the site requires a vertical climb on stepped steps made for goats and llamas!! And with my broken ribs, stomach ache and my old knee injury there was no way I could have done this without some tears… But believe me, I guarantee that if we did have the time I would have done it. We could not miss our train to Machu picchu, therefore we concentrated on walking around the town, again the mix of native architecture and Spanish colonial like Cusco but somehow more rural with a lot of adobe is beautiful, the simplicity and character of the houses, the clay stucco and the earth tones made this town a must-see place. I was a little sad we did not have the time to explore the fortress, but it gives as an excuse to maybe come back in another time (hopefully before we are too old to be able to climb this crazy place).
We got to the train station that is like 10 minutes walking from the little plaza, got our final tickets (we bought them ahead of time and needed to exchange them for the real tickets), wait in line and board the train. We were exited, it was the first time that we really travel in train to an actual destination (we had ridden the train to the Grand Canyon, but this is more like a ‘fair ride’ than a real train travel experience), everybody around us was a tourist, mostly from Europe. It was 4.30pm when the ride started (last almost 2 hours) but the experience is incredible, the train travels along the river Urubamba that curves through a series of narrow valleys flanked by almost vertical mountains in both sides, here and there you can see the snowy peaks of the Andes in the distance, the flow of the river is fast, Bryan was saying that the river would make a very fun kayak ride (I though he was absolutely crazy). The ride is a picture-perfect experience, the place looks like from an Indian Jones movie or a James Rollins book, out of this world, to trip was so spectacular that I almost forgot my horrible stomach each. We were happy that we did the trip early enough to see it with day light. After 1.5+/- hrs. we arrived to Aguas Calientes (or Machu Picchu Town) where the people from the hotel was waiting for us. Got to the hotel within a 5-minute walk from the station, got our room and took something for my stomach, felt better after a few bathroom visits and decided to walk around the town to find dinner and buy the tickets for the next morning bus to get to Machu Picchu. The town is in reality a tourist trap, in the middle of nowhere, restaurant after craft store and so on, you can find all kind of food here, Bryan picture it similar to the Tibet where everybody goes to climb the Everest, again, we really not going to suggest an specific restaurant because for that we needed to try them all, but if you happen to be here one day, just walk around, follow your nose and your instincts, I’m sure you won’t make the wrong decision. Food was excellent Bryan had Alpaca Skewers and I had Alpaca steak, they were fantastic, again with vegies, rice and potatoes (the potatoes in Peru taste so much better than anywhere else, they are fresh). Any way the girl in the bus tickets told us that if we wanted to be on the first 3 buses in Machu Picchu, we needed to be in the bus stop at 4.30am (first bus leaves at 5.30, so be there1hr before), and she was right!
