From Chile to Peru

Before I say anything about Peru I will first comment of how unreliable the airports and airlines were.

With that being said when we finally made it to Peru it was so amazing the pictures and words just don't express how large or how fantastic all the Inca sites were. I was also surprised at the size of cusco i was thinking that it was about 30,000 - 40,000 people...Nope it is more like 370,000 people. Most of which are still living in adobe houses.


The first day we met with our tour company, Lamaita Travel, who deals primarily with missionaries and their families. They were fabulous. We went on a tour around Cusco and some of the Inca sites that were close by.


The second day we went to a llama farm and Sacsahuaman. Cusco mean navel because it was the center of the Inca empire. Sacsahuaman was thought to be the mouth of the head. These large rocks were formed to be the teeth. It was a fortress.


The llama farm had alpaca,llamas, vicuna (which are endangered and softer that alpaca)and guanaco (which is the most soft and most rare)we got to watch them spin and die the yarns.


We also went to a town called Ollantaytambo. This was one of my favorites. The town still looks that same as it did when the Inca lived there except the roofs are tile instead of thatched.




Here is a side of the mountain where they farmed and stored their grains can you see the face of an Andean man?

Then we traveled to the town of Aguas Calientes. The only way to get there is by train or by foot hiking on the original Inca trail/highway. The main street in this town is the rail from the train. No cars.


From this town you take a bus up to Macchu Picchu.
This site is so much larger than you think in real life. We took a tour once up there. The tour was about 2.5 hours and only covered maybe half of the site.

Some of the parts that stand out in my mind are:
1. the irrigation system that was all over all of the Inca sites. They knew how to make that water flow to where they needed it to go.

2. When they say Inca trail/highway what they really mean is stairs that go up and down the mountain.

3. Inca temples are made with such presicion that it would be hard today to replicate it. The Sun temple was the Inca king.

4. The word Macchu Picchu means "old mountain" this is the mountain that the site is sitting on.

5. The famous Mountain is called Hauyna Picchu which means "young mountain" you can actually take a hike that goes to the top where there is a house and some terraced gardens.


6. These people were inspired and hard working to build and live in this area.