The Town of Ayacucho
After our stay in Andahuaylas which, unfortunately, ended with me getting my wallet picked in the bus, we headed on to Ayacucho, where we had to spend several days to sort out the police reports and our other documents. While this delay meant that we had to give up on visiting the town of Pisco down on the coast, Ayacucho is not such a bad place to get stuck, despite having to spend four hours in line at the bank to pay $1.66 to get a copy of a police report. The town was getting ready for a festival on the day that we arrived, so we took advantage of the opportunity to soak up some local culture.
Andahuaylas and the Ruins of Sondor
After our visit to Machu Picchu, we decided to leave the Sacred Valley behind and make our way north despite the dozens of enticing ruins left to see... alas, this is a big world and there are other Old Piles of Stone to see! Our first stop was a ten hour bus ride later at the town of Andahuaylas. We spent a couple of nights there, taking advantage of the opportunity to visit the ruins of Sondor, overlooking a beautiful mountain lake.
Climb to Putucusi
After our trip to Machu Picchu, we decided to get away from the crowds and enjoy this Inca marvel a bit more serenely. So, we decided to climb the trail up to the Putucusi mountain, one of the magnificent cone-shaped peaks opposite Machu Picchu. The climb has a reputation as being difficult due to the need to scale some rickety wooden ladders to get over a couple of small cliffs, but we were quite ready for a little adventure.
The Ruins of Machu Picchu
We finally made it to Machu Picchu. So much has been said in so many places about Machu Picchu that we are not really sure where to begin. The site is reputed as the best preserved of all Inca sites, a claim based on the fact that the Spanish conquistadors never found it and neither plundered it nor desecrated its shrines. Otherwise, Machu Picchu occupies a visually stunning setting, sitting on a spur jutting out over a 500 meter deep canyon with near vertical walls. The mist of the cloud forest almost always enshroud the place just a touch, giving it a mystical feel.
Getting to Machu Picchu
The Inca site par excellence, the place that every tourist to Peru just has to visit, is Machu Picchu. An enormous infrastructure has developed in a somewhat slapdash fashion around this place, and every visitor who wants to get to this remote site has to take the extortionately high-priced and ridiculously over-hyped tourist train. Well, almost everybody, that is.
The Salt Mines of Salinas de Maras
The last place that we visited out of Ollantaytambo was the salt mines of Salinas de Maras. While not an Old Pile of Stone strictly speaking, the mines have reportedly been in use since precolumbian times, and that is good enough for us.