This morning started bright and early at 4:30 in Lima, boarding the bus by 5:30 for our flight to Cuzco. There were no delays so we arrived in there at about 8:45. We are at an altitude of 11,004 ft now. We didn’t stay long before we boarded our bus to Yucay in the Urubamba Valley. There were a number of pictures I would like to have taken along the drive but alas no time and no place to stop. I did snap a few from the window which will have to do to remind us of this trip.
We arrived to a lovely little hotel called La Casona de Yucay Hotel which is surrounded with thousands of beautiful flowers. We were introduced to coca tea which is supposed to help with altitude sickness, we had been told it would taste horrid but it really was quite nice. I need to make sure I don’t drink it later in the afternoon as there is a lot of caffeine in it. It was lunch time so off to the hotel restaurant where most of us had soup, I had a local soup which I can’t remember how it was spelled but was delicious and Bob had a Caesar salad. We then had some free time to do as we pleased. We tried to connect to the internet in our room but I guess because we are in the corner room we couldn’t so Bob went to the lounge area where I joined him, we were able to contact Tracy. It was wonderful hearing her voice even if she has been suffering from a cold.
At 2:00 back to the bus for our ½ hour trip to Ollabtatytamba ruins. What a fantastic place, it was hard to believe that these walls have lasted over 500 years with very little reconstruction. Bob and I made it to the top, thankfully we didn’t have to take all the steps at once, we would stop every few terraces for a bit more information and a chance to breath. It really is amazing that the Incas were able to move these hugh stones from high up on the mountain opposite it to the site of their temple without the aid of a wheel. They used logs to roll the stone and many men to pull. You will see in one of the pictures how they cut the stones so that they would fit together, thus have withstood a number of earthquakes. The temple was never finished as the Spanish invaded and that was that. Our local guide told us story after story which I will not relate here.
After about 1 ½ hours on the site where both Bob and I made it to the top we headed down the many steps for a visit to the Inca city. The homes these people were living in are the same as the Incas of 500 years ago with one exception they now have electricity. The owners are not allowed to change them as they are a world heritage site. We had a very interesting visit to one home. The tour finished back on the bus and back to the hotel.
Dinner tonight is in the hotel and we are all having alpaca for dinner, I will let you know on the next entry what it was like.
Tomorrow morning we are again up early to catch our train to Machu Picchu. We are only allowed to take a small backpack with our overnight supplies as we are only staying one night and the train does not allow big suitcases. We will not be taking our computer up there so you will have to wait for the next episode for when we get back to Cuzco.
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