We spent the majority of our second day in Cuzco seeing the sights of the Sacred Valley, a beautiful and lush region among the Andes that contained many agricultural sites, some of which are still used today, others that merely remain as ruins from the 15th century at the height of the Incan presence there.
We boarded our tour bus bright and early, excited and curious about what we'd signed up to see. We quickly realized that our guide was, in a word, terrible. Not only did he talk in a very disinterested monotone, he made no effort to pause between switching from rapid Spanish to broken English, which made listening to him an altogether stressful and confusing affair. I think I was able to make out the word "potato" a few times during his tour, but that was about it. At one point, when he was off the bus, we turned to a girl who was fluent both in English and Spanish and asked her what our guide had just talked about for thirty minutes, to which she shrugged and said, "I don't know. His Spanish is just as bad as his English." What kind of a tour guide can't speak either of the languages he's supposed to be talking in?! Anyhoo, if you're planning on seeing the Sacred Valley, definitely look some up on TripAdvisor and find one with favorable reviews.
Quick, someone give this guy a few copies of Rosetta Stone
Though the bus tour's narration was lacking, the views were definitely not and we still had an excellent experience. As we wove through mountainsides and came across plains, we jokingly said that we'd found Catan. The lands were abundant in rocks, trees, sheep, dried yellow grass (hey, it's close enough to wheat), and more bricks than the eye could count.
Now I just need a sheep and I can buy a development card!
Our first of three stops on the tour was in a small village on the outskirts of Cuzco, where we were given a demonstration of how the local women made colorful table runners by hand from alpaca wool. Thankfully, the main woman spoke very good English. She took us through each step of the process, starting with the dirty, just-shaved wool and ending with stunning woven goods. The amount of labor-intensive detail they put into making each table runner was truly mind-boggling. I was surprised that they kept to the same tools and methods that they had been doing for hundreds of years, like scrubbing a certain root known to create frothy water for washing the wool and using the blood of baby beetles to create a brilliant red dye.
Spinning spinning spinning
Making dye from crushed beetle blood. She then used it on her lips as gloss. Organic!
We also encountered a furry friend right outside of the courtyard where all the demonstrations were happening. I never knew that alpacas made such hilarious sounds - check out the video to hear his incessant yet adorable bleating.
O hai!
Giving our friend a noogie
Our next stop on the trip was out of the small town and into the plains to see an ancient agricultural site called the Moray Terraces, which, for a lack of a better description, resembled 3D crop circles nested in the ground. They were used by the Incans to test out different types of soil for planting potatoes, quinoa, grain and all sorts of other starchy goodness at varying altitude levels - pretty ingenious, if you ask me. The Moray terraces also happened to look darned nifty from above, although let me tell you that while going down into the lowest level was easy and fun, climbing the five hundred feet back up was definitely not.
Driving along the valley, we saw a contained fire in the fields
The Moray terraces - ta da! I'm pretty sure that this ancient agricultural technique probably produced the modern-day potatoey perfection that is the McDonald's french fry.
Standing in front of the mines of Moria terraces of Moray
The stairs between each level were made of rocks that jutted out from the walls.
So circular. So meta.
Our third and final stop for the day was at the Salinas salt mines, just a short drive from Moray. I'd never before stopped to think how we actually collect salt - I guess I'd kind of just assumed it was a simple collection process - but this visit proved me wrong! To collect, wash, and refine the salt, the Peruvians built an intricate water system through which water from the nearby Vilcanoa River would flow and drain through different types of pools and then slowly evaporate, leaving behind the salt for collection. We learned that typically, a month's worth of draining yields a layer 10cm deep of salt in a pool that averaged to be five square meters in area. Not only does it take a lot of time, but different pools are designed for specific types of salts - some are cultivated for animals to lick while other salts are refined further so that they are suitable for cooking.
There were about 3,000 pools in total. The different colors indicate the different types of soil/refinery in each pool.
Salt collectors using pans to strain for salt
We all stuck our fingers into the pool and tasted it. It was salty. Surprise!
One neat thing I found in the small snack shops near Salinas were deep-fried, salted habas beans. I had these crunchy morsels all the time growing up in China and was always very fond of them but could never get a hold of them in the States. It was a pleasant surprise to see them being sold in a completely different part of the world. I excitedly bought a little packet and made all the white people try some.
So happy with my habas beans
And thus marked the conclusion of our bus tour. We were dropped back in Cuzco around 3 PM and spent the remainder of the evening walking about the city and enjoying our last hours there. At night, we found a local restaurant and watched the Olympics - karate was on - and called it a night early, as we were set to be picked up at 4:45 AM the following morning (breakfast at 4:15! Wincing as I type this) to start our big trek to Machu Picchu.
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