The Sacred Valley - Day 6 in the Valley of the Incas

Near the former Inca capital Cusco is the so-called Sacred Valley (Valle Sagrado), where there are numerous Inca ruins and temples to see.

Starting with Chinchero, which is actually not located in the valley, but at an altitude of 3800 meters. Chinchero is a small, cute place where you can see ruins as well as the typical terraces that were used for growing food by the Incas.

                 

                                  

                                                      

Like in some other Andean villages, a large part of the people here make their living by weaving fabrics and making clothes from alpaca wool. Some of the local women showed us how it is traditionally done (with shampoo and plant-based dyes).

You can also find the typical terraced fields like in Chinchero in Moray, which looks almost like a UFO landing site. However, we only encountered a lot of cold rain there, so we only took a short time for some photos.

                                      

Unfortunately, this pouring rain also prevented us from visiting the salt mines of Maras, where a variety of special salts is harvested.

Sunshine and a gentle breeze then greeted us in Ollantaytambo, down in the valley. There is a still relatively well-preserved large Inca city here, including the remains of a temple. However, to get there, one has to climb more than 300 steps. The Incas clearly had a preference for building their structures high up on the mountains, maybe to be closer to the sun and their gods.

                                   

The terraced fields that were once created here for agriculture are still in use today.

                                             

Our tour ended (unfortunately, once again in the rain) in Pisac, another ruin on a mountain on the other side of the valley. Despite the clouds, the view from up here was simply phenomenal and the story of the graves carved into the mountain was simply incredible.

                                   

A very wet, but fortunately also very interesting day!