Sacred Valley Journey Julio 5, 2009 (Parte 1)

Hola,

We had a packed day today!

As we prepared to leave the Sacred Valley, I knew our time had flied by and we were going to miss the place the Incans called "Heaven on Earth." 

On our way back to Cusco, we stopped at the ruins of Ollantaytambo and Pisac. 

Our first destination was in the middle of a small town and the ruins were surrounded by a market and vendors desperate to sell their products; a sign of tourism invading this once quiet country. There was an amazing view of the valley from the top of the ruins, and we learned how important shadows were in Inca society and how they helped them determine tools like the sundial. They also were smart enough to develop a calendar out of one of the mountains in the valley. Wherever the sun rose in relation to the mountain, that determined what month it was.

So if you wanted to know what day it was, you had to wake up pretty early or just be a morning person!

After leaving Ollantaytambo, we drove into the small town called Yucay.

On this sunday afternoon, most of the kids, anywhere from 5 to 20 where playing in a soccer field next to the local church. This is one of the few towns that uses it's valuable space in the valley for huge, local fields for the public to enjoy. 

We stopped at a local restaurant across from these fields filled with soccer,volleyball and people just hanging out and enjoying the weather.

The restaurant was called AlpaManka, and was an outdoor oasis buffet hidden by Spanish rancho walls.  

The buffet was filled with Andean and Peruvian foods including Alpaca, Urubamba salmon and much more.

Some of the Andean/Peruvian food that my family and our tour guide enjoyed included:

-Lisas Uchu: (Stew of Andean Tuber)

-Alpaca a la Pimineta con Arroz (Alpaca in Pepper with rice)

-Pescada a la vasca:(Spanish style trout)

-Arroz con leche: (Rice Pudding)

After leaving the wonderful little restaurant, we passed through more little towns as we winded our way through the valley.

The "bamba" on the end of town's names comes from the original language here called Quechua, and means flat area for a town or layover or rest stop for traveling. 

Statues were all along the main road we were traveling on, and we stopped at one statue of a Puma in Calca and another of a corn farmer in Huyllabamba. 

This is a super-long post so i'll do part 2 in another post!