Aguas Calientes

March 22, 2010

Okay so let's review once more. We took a plane to Lima, then a plane to Cusco. Next we rode the train below for 3 hours to Aguas Calientes.

Then hopped on the bus below for 20 minutes. We took a road that was VERY narrow, and VERY curvy. And at last... we reached our destination - Machu Picchu!
But let's not get ahead of ourselves :o)
Here is Maggie on a bridge in Aguas Calientes.

It's a small town, with no vehicles except the buses to Machu Picchu.

The town is built on either side of this river and is stuck in between a couple mountain ranges. The whole place is on a hill.

It's not much to look at and extremely touristy.

The christmas tree made from recycled green plastic soda bottles was pretty cool.

The hot springs were AMAZING!

The kids enjoyed the wildlife :o)

And some traditional Peruvian games.

But that was about it.

Oh, except that Mike got REALLY sick and spent the whole time in the hotel, minus our trip to Machu Picchu.

He was, however, able to make the trek to the hot springs before we left. I think thanks, in part, to these benches along the way.

Sacred Valley Part II

March 22, 2010

Our first stop of the day on the tour of the Sacred Valley was actually Pisaq. They are well known for a large flea market on Tues and Sundays. We could not make either of those days so went on a day when the market is small. Besides the clothing and souvenirs you can also buy pottery and food.

Max found this flute called a saku, I think. He LOVED it and played it the rest of the day!

Maggie found a little Incan doll and I got some jewelry. On the whole though all the stuff just seemed way too touristy and unoriginal.

Photo out the window on our way to Ollantaytambo.

Just hanging out playing the harp.

View down the city "street".

Ollantaytambo ruin.

Up, up, up we go!

Ooops! Didn't mean to load this photo. Ah well. We climbed way up to the top of this ruin where there were a couple structures built. Well, okay, I climbed then Mike climbed. The kids made it about half way :o)

This is a view of the town from about half way up.

Alpaca

March 22, 2010

Part of our tour in the Sacred Valley included a stop at this place where they raised Alpaca and used the wool to make clothing. These wonderful ladies demonstrated the whole process. I found it interesting but the kids were blown away.

Here she is demonstrating how the alpaca is cleaned in natural soap.
Then she showed us how they use natural ingredients like berries to color the alpaca.

First they put the alpaca in plain water and it came out white, of course. Then they put the plants in the boiling water, added the alpaca and viola! The kids both, literally, said "whoa" out loud. So cute!

Finally they had a whole group of people turning the alpaca into yarn and then making tons of items from scarfs, to sweaters to bags.

Sacred Valley Part I

March 22, 2010

On our journey to Machu Picchu we first flew to Lima, then flew to Cusco. We stayed in Cusco a few nights and did day trips. First we did a tour of Cusco by bus and then a tour of the Sacred Valley the next day. The Sacred Valley consists of multiple small towns with small ruins to see. I have taken waaaay too long to post these so I cannot remember the name of each one. But, not to worry, I do still have my tour info so in my next life I can scrapbook our adventure ;o)

BTW I have broken our trip into many small segments. Just trying to sort through the Sacred Valley pics took me an hour. The task is a bit overwhelming!

This was the first stop we made.

Look at the SIZE of those rocks! The photo is fuzzy but if you compare the size of Mike and Maggie to the boulder the indians somehow placed it is quite impressive.

Kids do not appear too impressed. What do they know...

View during busride of the countryside. So beautiful!

Next stop. We did do a lot of walking as evidenced by the trail you can see but the bus ride in between made it manageable for the kids. However please keep in mind this is at 13,000 ft above sea level. Any walking is a workout! We were lucky though... being acclimated to Bogota's almost 9,000 ft helped ALOT.

The terracing you see is supposedly how the indians planted their crops and gradually acclimated the plants to higher and higher altitudes.

We climbed ALL the way up! Kids too.

Anyone considering this trip I advise doing what we did just by luck of the train schedule. Go to Cusco and hang there a couple days doing all the day tours BEFORE going up to Machu Picchu. These ruins were impressive but after you see M.P. they seem small. So we really enjoyed each step up to the last day!