Sacsayhuaman and the Inca sights around Cusco
Second day in Cusco, feeling no ill-effects from the altitude we decided to hike up the hill North of the city to the ruins of the Sacsayhuaman inca fortress, only 40 minutes steep walking from the plaza de armas. With this view along the way…
We had planned to just visit this ruin for the day and go to the other 3, smaller ones the next day. However when we got to the entrance of Sacsayhuaman we discovered that the entry ticket for all 4 was 50% cheaper if we visited them all in one day. So we bought the one day discount ticket, at 1:00pm, with 5 hours of light left in the day. This meant a lot more hiking in between sites.
Sacsayhuaman is a large fortress, built by the inca civilization in the 15th century. Enough of it remains for you to imagine a very formidable fortification. A sheer cliff on one side, and 3 levels of high walls made of massive stones zigzagging at right angles across the flat open ground below.
There’s more to the site than just the main fort, with tunnels, lots more building foundations and a circular arena.
We didn’t linger long, in order to get to the other 3 sights before sunset. The next one, quite small, was the inca rocks of Qenco. I met an Andean shaman there who was explaining to me the energy that (the incas) believe is in the rocks here.
After that we walked what was supposed to be a 1 1/2-2 hour tough uphill climb, according to me rough guide. So naturally, we got to the next ruin easily in 50 minutes after a mainly gradual uphill walk along the side of the road. More kudos to rough guide for accurate information. Just before reaching the ruins of Pukapukara we passed through a small farming village. Houses built of the mud blocks and the fields surrounded by them too, they even had a football pitch in the village…
Pukapukara was the gate house for the incas, a medieval customs office for the people en-route to Cusco complete with, apparently, hotel rooms of a sort.
The last of the sites, 10 minutes down the road from Pukapukara, was the baths of Tambomachay. Another small site, with a cool inca water system there.
It started to rain while we were admiring the baths, and since we were completely unprepared for the day, only taking stuff we thought we’d need for the first ruin (no coats, jumpers or much of anything else) we caught a 1 sole (usd 0.30) minibus taxi back to the first ruin instead of walking in what was now a chilly day with the sun long hidden behind clouds. It was not raining back at Sacsayhuaman so we figured we’d walk around some more there. Apparently our ticket was meant to be for one entry per sight (which makes no sense to me since it was only valid for today), but I concocted a story in spanish for the ticket person which she seemed to possibly half believe, and let us in regardless. The light was different and the wind was cold, but we walked around a bit more imagining what the place would’ve looked like in it’s day…
After that we headed quickly back to Cusco, and warmth. Stopping briefly for some shots of the city at dusk, it’s a stunning view night or day.
The first restaurant we found with alpaca on the menu was our next stop, to try the local dish. I’d rate it average, pretty tough with decent flavour. Now I just have to figure out where I can go for a ride on one…
Tags: Peru, Travel
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