Lucky me, to have a 2008, a 2011, and now a 2024 visit to the Sacred Valley, each time with at least one of my daughters, whose company is wonderful and whose Spanish gets me out of jams.
This trip, Laura rejoined me, bringing along her partner, Marc, for the first time. It seemed fitting to suggest a trip to see the Inca and pre-Inca ruins since Marc and Laura are building a house of stone themselves.
Some day I’ll negotiate the rights to publish a detailed post on their off-the-grid estate which Marc has rightly named Helm’s Deep.
Cusco and Sacsayhuamán
We flew from Denver to Los Angeles to Lima to Cusco, a typical itinerary, with good treatment from both Delta and LATAM. The bad treatment occurred in LAX where twice someone triggered a security alarm, filling the concourse with an incredibly loud, high-pitched noise that, surprisingly, OSHA has not silenced, a nuisance that that apparently has been occurring for over two years, according to a reddit thread.
On a practical note, I brought my Steripen, a fluorescent light that purifies water, saving us many bottles of purified water. Because it works particularly well in clear water, it’s perfectly suited to the task. Next time I’ll remember to bring a charger for the batteries, which didn’t last the trip. The newer models have built-in chargers.
We landed in Cusco at 11,000 feet, so beautiful a descent. Against our better knowledge, we took a taxi that the boss (el jefe) pressure-talked us into as we exited the airport. His man took us to a relative’s hotel that had no vacancy. Wanting to get away from this situation, we started walking on the least desirable avenue in Cusco, until we reached the plaza and went uphill to nicer parts to find lodging.
Much of what we did in Cusco involved the ruins, walking twice to Sacsayhuamán.
If I ever understand how it was possible for some unknown peoples to erect such massive, uniquely shaped stone walls without mortar, fitting millimeters apart, standing firmly for hundreds or thousands of years, I’ll add a post about it. For now, I’ll just touch on the business while mentioning some interesting and sometimes funny events of the Peru trip.
It was in 2008 that I learned to appreciate café cortados—in Cusco. Oddly, I was having a hard time finding a real cortado this trip…generally getting something like a very small cappucino instead…so the hunt was on.
Pisac
In 2011, Laura and I ran from Cusco to Pisac, about 20 miles. This time we took a bus.
I’ll always like this town that is bordered on one side by the Urubamba River and on the back side by Inca ruins.
Ollantaytambo “oh-yahn-tai-tahm-boh”
We took a collectiva to Ollantaytambo, the only new town for Laura and myself, and one that challenged Pisac for its charm, probably surpassing Pisac for its ruins. We found our hotel by chance, coming across it just as an Anglo woman also walked up to the door, saying, “I used to run this place.” She dropped off a nine-year-old child without going in, but we went in, finding the owner hospitable (but perhaps not to his ex-wife who had dropped off the the child) and informative.
Because Ollantaytambo is the location from which one train to Machu Picchu departs, many visitors do not enjoy the nearby ruins, but Marc and Laura explored them with typical rigor.
Machu Picchu
Not only did I get to Machu Picchu later, but I left earlier than Laura and Marc. I decided to take the bus down instead of returning on the steep trail that leads back to Aguas Calientes. But the bus queue kept growing and the bus-every-five-minutes event was not happened.
We took a different train back, one that heads straight toward Cusco but must stop eight miles outside since the climb would be prohibitively steep for a train. A skilled taxi driver got us through the narrow, busy streets of Cusco at night in time for our return flight. Thank you, driver.
Here’s a nine-minute slideshow of our trip that I put together for friendss who were in the left-behind (outside of Peru) series:
