We got picked up at 8 am, but Heather and Julia stayed behind because Julia wasn't feeling well. Today was a half day tour of the valley south of Cuzco.
We made a quick stop at Rumicollqa. Basically the Incas built a wall across the valley to keep out other people. The wall had 2 doors in it that they controlled.
Our next stop was The Church of St Pedro (Peter) in the village of Andahuaylillas. The spanish took all the Incan gold, sent lots of it back to Spain, and ornamented their Peruvian churches with the rest. The spanish liked to build their churches right on top of the Incan worship centers, in an effort to convert them. This church is sometimes called the Sistine Chapel of America because of how ornate it is. It was built in 1631, and is elaborately decorated with gold and mirrors everywhere. The original wooden balcony is intact, we were a little afraid to stand under it. The whole church has been undergoing reconstruction for the last 10 years, and they have a ways to go. All the paintings have already been restored.
Our next archaeological stop was the remains of a Wari village. The Wari Empire was a group of people that lived here between 600 and 1100 AD. This place is called Pikillacta (the place where fleas bite). Whereas the Inca, who came later, used granite walls with lots of clay, brick, and grass, the Wari used softer sandstone walls which were not as durable. However, the Wari actually plastered their interior walls with limestone. One dwelling we saw had half of it excavated and the other half not. In the unexcavated part (at least 10 feet deep), you could clearly see at least 3 or 4 layers of sediment, probably from huge river floodings. The streets of the Wari village were long and straight and narrow and went on forever, farther than the eye could see. There was a small museum we visited there which displayed some Wari artifacts, and the skeletons of prehistoric creatures. One looked like a giant armadillo, called a gliptodonte (no idea if that is spanish or not!)
To reach our last site, we had to maneuver some pretty interesting narrow roads up the mountains, all under construction. Everytime we came to a blind bend, our driver honked his horn and went barrelling around the corner. We only had to move aside for other vehicles a few times.
The site was another Incan settlement called Tipon. Supposedly it belonged to an Incan named Yahuar Huaca, and was a place of residence as well as a place of worship, and an agricultural research station. The reason they think it was a research station is because there were several triangular shaped outcrops where the soil was different from the rest of the terraces, and that darker soil could only support potatos. All the Incan sites that we have visited have stone walls that are incredibly linked together, and have slight inclines up to 6 degrees. This apparently kept the walls from collapsing during earthquakes.
What was really cool about Tipon was the system of aquaducts and fountains. The water came from a different mountain, Pachatusan. The water went down one mountain and up another using an underground piping system. The Incas built square pipes out of rope, covered them with volcanic material, then clay. All of this was underground, and is still operating today.
We got back to the hotel around 1:00, and lo and behold, a girl was there with Frankie's sunglasses! We had given up hope of seeing them again. They were sent by public bus, and we had to pay 10 soles for it ($4), a lot cheaper than a new set of prescription sunglasses. The 2 of us gave Dennis some of our clothes that we didn't intend to bring back home, for him and his girlfriend, who happens to be the same size as Frankie. They gave us instructions for the rest of our trip, then the 6 of us went off to find a place to eat a late lunch. We discovered some cheap little restaurant, and you get what you pay for. A huge platter of passable food, but the service lacked a little. Heather told us about her morning - she had to go into town to the police station and report about her cell phone. At first they didn't want to do anything for her, but our guide insisted that a paper was necessary in order to avoid huge replacement fees.
Back to the hotel for the afternoon to rest and pack. Frankie took a shower, and the hair dryer would only work for 2 minutes at a time. Blow for 2 minutes, pack for 5 minutes. Blow. Pack. Blow. Pack.
For the evening, the 6 of us headed for a short walk into town to the Native Arts Cultural Centre where they had a show of regional dances and a live band. To get in, there was a long line down the sidewalk. A large group tried to butt into the front of the line, and anger was expressed in several languages at once. The show itself was pretty good, but the theatre was old and had not so very comfortable seats.
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