Don’t Skip: Ollantaytambo, Peru
Intro to Ollantaytambo The town of Ollantaytambo lies at the intersection of three valleys, at the western end of the Sacred Valley region in Peru. Traditionally, it was a place to rest and restock on the way through the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu. Remains of temples show religious significance as well. During the 1400s […]
Tambomachay to Saqsaywaman
While Cuzco is an amazing city to explore, there’s so much more to see once you get out of town. Surrounded by the Andes, Cuzco was the heart of the Inca Empire. Even before the arrival of the Inca, the Killke culture dominated this region from about 900-1200 AD. There are countless ruins in the […]
Machu Picchu
The train ride from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu Pueblo) was like entering the jungle. Everything got more and more lush, green and wet. There was less agriculture, and more wild. Aguas Calientes itself (named for thermal springs on the edge of town) was another kind of jungle, the tourist kind. Obviously this […]
Ollantaytambo
The Road to Ollantaytambo Having left Pisac late in the afternoon after a LONG walk up and through the ruins, we were pretty tired by the time we changed buses in the transportation crossroads of Urubamba. From Urubamba we jumped in a colectivo (usually a minivan or van, smaller and a little more expensive than the bus but considerably faster). […]
Pisac: Gateway to the Sacred Valley
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 […]
Chiclayo y El Señor de Sipán
Exploring Chiclayo Chiclayo is about three hours north of Trujillo in northwest Peru, not far from the coast. It was founded near the Northern Wari ruins, an important archaeological site. There are additional archaeological sites of the Moche (Mochica) and Chimu cultures in this area near the coast. Today, the city is best known for its colonial […]
Trujillo, Chanchán y las Huacas
Yet another overnight bus took us 500+ km north of Lima to the city of Trujillo, founded in 1534, and known as the City of Eternal Spring (although it´s a pretty steamy summer right now). Trujillo lies in northwestern Peru, close to the coast, but otherwise surrounded by desert. This area, the Moche Valley was […]
Santuario de Pachacamac
After a quick geocache find at a pretty lookout near our hostal, and with a new SIM card inserted in my cell phone, we head south from Lima to Pachacamac, a ceremonial and religious center which first came into use around 650 AD by the Wari culture. Its cemetery was sacrosanct, and the buildings and […]