A Day of Incan Ruins

22 September 2017

After waking up and eating a hotel breakfast of the typical things (bread and fruit), all the students loaded the bus for our day of looking at Incan ruins. We were only in the bus for a short while before we stopped at the first place. Before entering, we all received our tickets with our names on them. However, seeing as some of the students had forgotten their ISIC cards (myself included), we had tickets with other student’s names. After I got my ticket (I was Olivia Moore), we all entered the ruins. I was walking with Anna and Courtney until Courtney got winded from going up the hill. I then had to go back down the hill to tell Charo and Henry (Exchange student coordinator and his wife) that Courtney couldn’t walk anymore, was feeling sick, and needed to go to the bus. After we got Courtney all situated, we continued on to the ruins. By then, we had missed what the guide had said, and had to get a quick refresh from the other students.

After the Tambomachay (first ruin), we went to Q’enqo. While we got a tour of the ruins, two unsupervised children started climbing the ruins like they were a playground. This was very distracting and concerning, so two students ended up removing them from the ruins (we had no idea where their parents were), before telling them off. Afterwards, the tour of the ruins continued. 

In the ruins was a table where sacrifices were performed. While this was interesting, it was more fascinating that the stone table was MUCH colder than the surrounding walls and atmosphere. Also with these ruins was a natural stone slide, which all the students had fun going down.

After these ruins we headed to Sexy Woman, or as it actually is Saqsayhuaman (sounds like Sexy Woman a bit). Here we got lots of information about the ruins, as they had been very important. There was a lighting temple and a sun temple (although both had been destroyed by the Spainards). The rocks that constructed the ruins were also a mystery, as they were not from any of the nearby surrounding mountains. This mean that they would have had to been relocated, but the rocks were so large and the Inca’s weren’t that advanced. The theory I believed was that there had once been a mountain or hill where the ruins stood, that had been dug away at by the Inca’s to form the temple. Martin (Chezch Republic) suggested aliens, but I wasn’t buying it. After we walked Saqsayhuaman, we went to the top, where we had an amazing view of Cusco…

Afterwards, we went and had lunch in the city. The next stop on our tour after lunch was the most fertile valley of Perú, which as you can imagine, was beautiful…

It was also very close to our next destination, Pisac. Pisac was not only the sight of many Incan graves, many of which were disturbed, but also had a great view of the valley (once you climbed it)…

Once we had turned Pisac, we ended up going to a jewelry store (not really sure why but). It was very interesting, as we got to learn how everything was made. In particular, this jewelry store specialized in using precious gems in the jewelry. Many of the pieces were related to Peru in someway, and all were very beautiful. Not to mention, you could fetch lots of them for a decent price…

The jewelry store was the last stop of the day, if you don’t count the tourist shops we visited right outside the jewelry shops. Afterwards we returned to the hotel. We all sat in confusion, as we didn’t really know what was going on for Machu Picchu. We eventually got the real information, and packed our bags for the next day and the days following.