Old Piles of Words

Andahuaylas and the Ruins of Sondor

matt — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 21:22:44 +0000

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.

Sondor is easy enough to get to: one simply has to take a combi to Pacucha, get off on the far side of the lake and walk half an hour to the site. Of course, we didn’t know this, and got off on the wrong side of the lake, meaning we had a two hour walk around the lake first. However, the walk was great. It took us through a series of villages in a corner of the country where tourists rarely come, and where we were a true curiosity. The villagers greeted us warmly as we passed on the street, while excited children ran out of their homes yelling “Gringos! Gringos! Hola, Gringos!” It was a fun, foreign ambiance we hadn’t experienced since Guatemala.

Anyway, back to the ruins. Sondor was originally built by the Chanka culture. This culture is historically significant because it was their ruinous attempt to conquer Cusco in the early 15th century that catapulted the Inca to continental domination in what is probably history’s most successful counter-attack. Their influence is evident in several of the structures on the site, most obviously the hilltop-cum-pyramid that dominates the entire complex. At its apex sits a huaca, or stone-altar, at which archaeologists suppose that the Chanka practiced a variety of rituals, including human sacrifice.

After the fall of the Chanka, the Inca re-appropriated the site as their own. Indeed, the chroniclers of the 16th century record the site as a purely Inca one, omitting its previous occupiers. The Inca influence on the site is immediately obvious upon entering: a number of temples border the central plaza with the signature trapezoidal Inca windows and niches still intact.

This abandoned site, a world away from the circus of the rest of the Sacred Valley, was a really fun visit and a great day trip. We hope you enjoy the pictures!

Climb to Putucusi

matt — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:19:38 +0000

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.

As we set out we soon discovered that we would be in for more adventure than we had planned for. A storm and landslide had taken out a 50 meter stretch of ladder up the largest of the cliffs, leaving just a steel cable to assist in getting up the face. As we were contemplating turning around, another hiker appeared at the top of the cliff and began working his way down. He reported that the anchors at the top were all stable, and we figured the face looked like it had plenty of hand holds, so up we went.

After that, the hike went rather uneventfully: a couple more ladders, some steep-ish sections of trail and an hour and a half later we were up to the top. We had a great view of the entire valley, including a nice view across to Machu Picchu. It was definitely a great hike.

Enjoy the pictures!

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The Ruins of Machu Picchu

matt — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 03:01:12 +0000

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.

We should note that, due to the absence of a written language, just about everything we know about Machu Picchu is speculation more or less supported by scant archaeological evidence, just as with most of the things out of precolumbian South America. The most popular hypothesis about Machu Picchu at the current juncture is that it was a sort of royal retreat for one of the Incas and that it had already been abandoned by the time the Spanish reached Cusco. Other hypotheses speculate that it was a ceremonial center or an attempt to create a hidden outpost of Inca civilization built as the Spanish arrived. Whatever the case may be, Machu Picchu was certainly among the finer of the constructions in the empire’s heartland.

That being said, I would like to point out that Machu Picchu is significantly over-hyped. While it is true that the Spanish never pillaged the site, this is rather meaningless to your average visitor who cannot dig for artifacts. The only difference from an archeology geek’s perspective is that some religious carving is still in place. Again, this is not that significant: two simple carvings and one sundial are all the art there is to see at Machu Picchu. Further, the site has undergone such sweeping restoration work that it is really quite difficult to continue to qualify it as pristine; the site today really bears little resemblance to the photos taken at the time of discovery. Further, the hordes of visitors to the site make it a bit difficult to sit down and contemplate the ruins. For our money, the ruins of Tipon or Pisac make much better, more impressive and educational excursions into the Inca world.

Nevertheless, Machu Picchu is a very beautiful site. We are very glad to have gone there and would happily go again. We hope these pictures give you an appreciation for this really nice place.

Getting to Machu Picchu

matt — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:17:42 +0000

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.

There was something about the tourist train that was just too, uh… comfortable for our taste. It is not that we mind paying $2 per kilometer on an 80 kilometer ride, it’s just that taking it is just a little too far removed from reality (and, actually, we did mind the price).

So, we decided to bus it, although with some apprehension because our travel guide strongly suggested that such a bus ride would take us through hell and back, and was only for the “die-hard traveler,” whatever that should mean. However, the bus really was the right decision. We caught the daily 9:00AM out of Ollantaytambo to a two horse town called Santa Maria. The bus had no more seats, but the driver was gracious enough to let us ride in the cab, which allowed us to appreciate some really great views of the Andes as we worked our way over the last chain before the Amazon.

From Santa Maria, it was another hour in the trunk of a station wagon combi along a narrow dirt road clinging to the side of a cliff to the one-horse town of Santa Theresa. From there, we caught another combi (with seats, this time) up the river to a hydro-electric project, which was also the end of the road. This was also where we caught our first glimpse of the ruins, on the top of a mountain overlooking the canyon.

At the hydroelectric project, we followed the same tracks that the tourist train runs on for five miles or so through the cloud forest, with lots of pretty flowers, butterflies and a friendly little dog that befriended us for the walk. This stretch took us directly into the town of Aguas Calientes, a miserable little tourist trap below Machu Picchu where you are pretty much obliged to spend a night or two in order to visit the ruins. We found a decent little room with hot-ish water and settled in.

The trip was easy and beautiful, far from the god-awful slog that everybody makes it out to be. And, it was only $11.

We took a few snaps of the day, check them out!

The Salt Mines of Salinas de Maras

matt — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 01:46:01 +0000

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.

In reality, it would be surprising if the Salinas had not been in use for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The heart of the complex is a hot spring that spouts water of up to 40% salt content (that is not a typo). The water is so salty that crystals grow up naturally around the vents. The “mines”, then, are simply pools that people have dug and built down the slope to capture the water and from which the salt is harvested once it has dried. An ingenious system of channels carries the water from pool to pool so that not a single bit of the water escapes.

The current economic organization around the salt mines is just as fascinating as their existence. The complex is owned by a cooperative, which is owned by the miners themselves. The miners buy or lease the rights to a pool from the cooperative, and work in it as needed. When the time comes to harvest the salt, they sell it to the cooperative, which in turns sells it at a higher price to the outside world. With the profits, the cooperative maintains the equipment, the channels, and provides other infrastructure. Any profit left over at the end of the year is divided between the miners. The system ensures that those who work harder get more money, while everybody gets a bit.

Enjoy the pictures!

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The Terraces of Moray

matt — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:31:08 +0000

Our next stop after Chinchero took us to the curious circular terraces of Moray. The only word that really exists to explain these three deep, stepped pits in a high plain overlooking the Urubamba valley is “wierd”. The pits are in fact quite huge: up to 140 meters across and 40 meters deep. Each also features a single water canal.

The purpose of the terraces of Moray, which probably date to the Inca period, is unknown. There are a variety of hypotheses, the most popular of which is that they were an agricultural research station for the Inca. Indeed, each of the levels boast a slightly different temperature, and it is not impossible that the Quechua used this difference to see what kind of plants would grow where and breed hybrids. Other, less likely, hypotheses include that Moray was an amphitheater or that it was a ceremonial place. For our part, we think that the three pits look like spaceship landing pads.

Enjoy the photos!

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The Ruins of Chinchero

matt — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 01:14:09 +0000

Our first outing from Ollantaytambo took us to the town of Chinchero, about an hour away by bus. Chinchero is known among the tourists for its market and as one of the most accessible places to see people in traditional garb, but trinkets don’t interest us and our way of traveling brings us into plenty of contact with locals. No, we were there for another reason entirely: an Old Pile of Stone!

Chinchero was a town of some importance in Inca times. A couple of the chroniclers report that it was founded by Inca Tupac Yupanqui, and there are a few reports that dissidents from within the nobility would be sent here in exile when they escaped execution in Cusco.

Today, all that is left of this past glory are some ruined walls, exquisite terracing, and, most impressively, a carved stone that once served as a fountain. A church now stands on the old city’s largest palace, and the outer walls of several temples still stand near the plaza.

We took some nice pictures of the place, we hope you enjoy!

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The Town and Ruins of Ollantaytambo

matt — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:55:22 +0000

After six days in Cusco, we finally exhausted what we could visit in a day trip, so we set out to the town of Ollantaytambo, situated between two steep mountains a bit further up the Sacred Valley, to use as a new base for our explorations. Ollantaytambo was, of course, a lot more than a base and also an interesting site in and of itself. Ollantaytambo was once an important city and fortress in the Inca empire, and very well fortified. It was, in fact, the only place where the Spanish lost a battle against the Inca, during the post-conquista rebellion of Manco Inca in 1537.

While the exact location of this battle within Ollantaytambo is unknown, it did provide a bit of fortune to those who visit the town today. The Inca defenders used prepared channels to flood the town during the fight, which brought with it loads of mud and silt which buried some of the upper-class sections of the city, which are just being excavated today. Additionally, the town itself managed to resist the imposition of Spanish culture fairly well, and it therefore maintains most of its precolumbian stone streets, buildings, and canals in various states of preservation.

On the mountain slopes to the west of the town lays Ollantaytambo’s main attraction: the remains of the Temple of the Sun, or the city’s citadel. The largish complex consists of a set of temples on the ridge of the slope, a series of decorative terraces and finally a storehouse. Viewed from the other side of the ravine, the group is supposed to resemble a sitting llama, with the temples forming its head, the terraces its body and the storehouse its tail. On the summer solstice, the first rays of the sun to break over the horizon hit the llama’s eye, a square stone temple.

Just below this complex lay the upper-class regions of the city, which are currently just being excavated. So far, archaeologists have found a number of interesting baths, each dedicated to a different group of the nobility.

On the slopes to the east of the town are a series of store houses, built with rows of windows facing downslope. This construction is actually rather ingenious because they are built to capture the flow of air up the slope. This kept their internal temperature well below that of the ambient temperature of the valley and allowed food to be stored for longer periods, kind of like a big fridge.

That is about all that we have to say about Ollantaytambo itself; be sure to stay tuned for the next installment of our tour through the Sacred Valley!

The Ruins of Pisac

matt — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:21:04 +0000

Our next day trip out from Cuzco took us deeper into the Sacred Valley to the ruins of Pisac. Pisac is a sprawling complex on a geographically prominent spur and probably served a number of purposes. Built by the Inca at around 1440 CE, it is best known for the sprawling decorative terraces that cover the slopes of the spur.

However, there is much more to the Pisac complex than just terraces. It includes the ruins of at least two residential neighborhoods (Pisaqa and Kinchiracay), a temple complex (the Intihuatana) and a citadel (the Callacasa) with numerous outlying watchtowers. These sections are each at different locations on the spur, separated by swaths of terracing. Across a draw from Pisac itself, a large precolumbian and possibly pre-incan cemetery is embedded in the cliff face in impossible graves that defy gravity. Another point of interest is the irrigation system and four baths (located at the base of the citadel), which still carry water today.

All told, thanks to its easy access yet uncrowded feeling, fine architecture and wonderful setting, Pisac was probably our favorite site around Cusco. Enjoy the pictures and stay tuned!

The Ruins of Tipon

venla — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 04:39:08 +0000

Move over Versailles, the Inca are coming! At least, that is the impression that the ruins of the palatial complex at Tipon give the visitor. As with most prehispanic ruins in the Andes, exactly who built this place and why is not known. We do know that Tipon was built during the Inca empire, and it seems likely that the complex served as a place of leisure for the Cuzco elite as well as a place of ceremonies.

Situated in a draw well up the side of the eastern ridge of the Cuzco valley, Tipon is a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering. A series of channels brought water from high in the mountains to the east to feed a complex system of fountains and baths that stretched across twelve platforms, three temples, a residential complex and what may have been a small fortress. Many of the channels still carry water and a couple of the fountains and baths still work, although it looks like they have been restored somewhat in the last few years.

The site was quite an experience. We hope you enjoy the pictures!