We slept in today, all the way to 6:30. Dennis and a new driver picked us up at 8 am. We drove down into the Sacred Valley. There was a scenic outlook where Dennis negotiated a good price for a huge bag for Frankie. After she bought it, she thought it was too big, so he negotiated a smaller one for her at a different scenic outlook later.
Our first stop was a tiny strip of market stalls, but more interesting was watching the 2 girls herding a bunch of alpacas and llamas into a wooden corral. Then they invited us into the corral and we were surrounded by alpacas. For a small fee, of course.
Our next stop was a place where you could feed different animals. A guy kept us supplied with grasses to feed them. The first pen contained guanacos, then a pen of alpacas, and a pen of llamas. They were all very aggressive in coming to get food, and very used to people. It was quite fun. Then they gave a demonstration of how they get the different colours to stay on the alpaca fur to make garments etc. Apparently the fur has to be dirty and they set the colours with something acidic such as lime or vinegar.
Our next stop was the town of Pisac, which was basically a market town. We had one hour to shop, and we did really well. More Christmas gifts, a souvenir plate, and a gorgious alpaca sweater. At one stall when we decided not to buy anything, a small boy latched onto Anton's leg and wouldn't let go.
We went to a really nice buffet restaurant for lunch. Heather had to eat her cinnamon dessert at a different table because it was too much for Frankie to smell. The restaurant had nice flower gardens, a pen of llamas, and a talking macaw. Dennis said "hola" and the macaw replied "hello".
Our main stop for the afternoon was Ollantaytambo. Dennis said it was simply an Incan place of worship, but our research says it was an Incan fortress designed to protect the entrance to the valley. Again, another impressive terraced structure built into the side of a mountain. The individual stones were massive, and fit together so precisely. The stones would have been quarried from the mountain across the way, and pushed manually up a ramp. Then pushed into place using a ramp of smaller stones. It was another town of the emporer Pachacuti (of Machu Picchu fame), and later served as a stronghold for Manco Inca Yupanqui, leader of the Inca resistance against the spanish.
We walked through the village at the bottom. They have made modern day houses out of the ancient Incan stones.
We stopped at an outlook of a mountain full of snow and a glacier. They grow a lot of potatos here, Dennis said Peru has 3000 varieties of potatos.
On the way back, we got stopped for construction for 15 minutes. Everyone behind us was getting impatient, and when our lane was finally allowed to go, it was a crazy dash of drivers all passing each other in order to be first. Forget waiting your turn in the order you were stopped. We heard a few choice swear words in spanish.
There are speed bumps going into and out of every town and village. Very effective at slowing you down. But then it is a straight drive through with no stop signs and stop lights, sometimes not even in larger cities. Our driver put the radio on and was listening to a soccer game between Peru and Ecuador. Driving back through Cuzco, we saw people sitting watching the game in every single shop we drove past, and sometimes people were crowded in storefront windows looking in. Even our hotel desk clerk was over watching the game.
Frankie's sunglasses were found in the van we came in from Puno, and were supposed to come up with another driver, but haven't arrived yet. We asked our hotel clerk to call and ask for us. We were told they would arrive tomorrow night between 6 and 7 pm. That's cutting it really close since we leave the next morning!
Heather lost her cell phone on the train yesterday, and when Dennis called to cancel the phone, they said she has to go in to a police station and make a police report, and then pay $50 US for the loss of the phone.
We walked down the road with Pete and Keegan to find a place to eat supper, and found a really nice restaurant where we were treated really special. They gave us free pisco sours, the national alcoholic drink. Nasty like vodka.
On our way back, the intersection to our hotel was super busy. Since it is an uncontrolled intersection, a police lady was standing in the middle of the intersection wildly blowing her whistle (one of the sounds of Peru). After she let both directions go several times without helping us get across, we just made a wild dash for it.
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