To travel to Pisac from Cusco is about an hour by local bus, 2.40 soles about 70 cents US.  We sat next to two women who were having a conversation in Quechua and trading goods.  One had bread and the other bananas and they seem to have made an agreeable and tasty trade.  So far all we’ve picked up is that native Quechua speakers pronounce gracias as gra-she-as.

After stopping at 3 or 4 villages along the route to drop off and pick up passengers we arrived in Pisac, a town of about 2000 people.  It’s best known for it’s market, and as a jumping-off point to explore the amazing ruins above. We walked up a small cobblestone street toward the plaza.  We had read that the path to the ruins was at the end of the road on the left of the church, and indeed, there it was.

Inca Pisac

The path was fairly steep with many switchbacks through the Inca terraces.  Ascending the Acchapata terraces, we saw several flowers that we hadn’t encountered before in Peru. So pretty! Near the top, the path turned into some ancient Inca stairs straight up the terraces.  They were very tall and narrow, and on the left side there was a small channel for irrigation.  It was amazing to think we were walking up the very same steps that countless people have used to get to their village high in the mountains hundreds of years before.

We reached the top, and found three buildings in the shape of half circles with lots of windows facing the valley, most likely the guard posts.  We thought that these might be all that was left of the site until we walked over the next rise and our jaws dropped .  The complex went on and on. The ruins of Pisac are included in Nat Geo Travel’s gallery of “Top 10 Inca Ruins to See (That Aren’t Machu Picchu)” and we could see why.

Intihuanta

There were small clusters of ruins almost everywhere you looked, the biggest lay halfway down to the valley floor and another along the ridge.  Our limited experience has taught us that the highest buildings are almost always temples and ceremonial centers.  We head for the building on the ridge.  Some irrigation channels and several buildings surround a huge, raised flat spot with what looked to be the remains of an altar.  This was the Intihuanta ceremonial center. There were A LOT of tour groups here, (the first we had seen since the town of Pisac where we started our hike) so we took a quick look around and continued to the next complex we could see.

We made it to some stone walls on the side of the mountain, believing we had arrived at more ruins.  As we got to the corner our jaws dropped again!  There was a whole other settlement on the back side of this mountain.  There looked to be two more villages and HUGE areas of terracing, mind-blowing in scale and size!  We surely hadn’t allowed enough time to explore here.

T’antana Marka

As we continued around the mountain, passing what looked to be a fortified, military area or lookouts, we found a tunnel.  It was cut directly through the rock on a sharp outcrop.  The Inca decided to go straight through instead of build a path around.  When we made it to the first group of buildings we noticed many old graves. Inca often buried their dead on the sheer sides of mountains by making what appear to be small caves.  There are said to be over a thousand graves here.  We also ran into another example of Inca master-engineering: six different water channels that flowed together at the base of a large hill.  After they joined they continued on to the terraces below.  It has been said that the Inca were some of the best ancient hydraulic engineers, second  only to the Romans.

A pan flute sets the mood.

While walking to the last complex, there was a man practicing the pan flute which really added to the atmosphere.  This final site had many niches of various sizes in most of the buildings.  The large niches had holes through the stone on each side for what we guessed would be for rope to secure some item. We were full of conjecturing, but were kind of wishing we had a guide by this point.

Here we ran into a little girl hard-selling woven bracelets.  We said no thanks but she persisted until we pulled out our weapon for these types of situations–a pencil!  We’ve learned that a child will often gladly accept a pencil and stop asking you to buy something.  Upon learning this trick we bought a pack our pencils for 1 sol (30 cents roughly) and have been handing them out ever since.

When we arrived to the parking lot after the furthest area called Qantus Raccay, there we people selling all sorts of crafts and refreshments.  We bought a choclo (ear of giant corn) with a slice of cheese and a water.  What a great reward after our long hike! Then it was on to haggling with the cabbies.  There were only three and immediately one left.  One of the last two was already waiting on it’s customers, so the last guy had a little more leverage than we would have liked.  We started the game and walked away to finish our choclo and discuss strategy.  We started the bidding again and he was pretty firm as he knew he was the only cab there and the walk back to town was about 7 kilometers.  We managed to talk him down 2 soles and jumped in.

En Peru blog has a wonderfully detailed post on this site!

Click here for Sacred Valley Photos