Tonight for Family Home Evening we visited our last Inca ruin in the Cusco Tourist Ticket. We went to Sacsayhuaman. I'm glad we left a night just for Sacsayhuaman, it was such a beautiful place. One of the guides we spoke to, told us that the city of Cusco was originally made in the shape of a Puma, and that Sacsayhuaman was the head of the Puma. The original citadel was made by the Killke culture around 1100 AD, and later expanded and added to by the Incas. The size of the rocks here is REALLY impressive.
The kids can't get enough of the alpacas
Look at the size of those rocks!
My three favorites
Also we saw pictures of this archaeological site in the dry season, and it made me glad that we are here during the rainy season, everything is so much greener. I'm a bit tired from the afternoon of walking, so I will just share a few pictures. We saw a couple of European girls taking funny photos, and they offered to help us do a few.
We needed a good focal point for this picture to be interesting, Maija volunteered ;)
Another contender for this year's family photo
And speaking of funny pictures, something funny happened to Wyatt today. He is somewhat of a Peruvian celebrity. There were a few school groups visiting Sacsayhuaman today, and a few asked Wyatt if they could take their pictures with him. I have heard of this happening to Caucasians in Asia, I did not know it would happen to Wyatt in Peru. Maija tried to snap a picture of the craziness around Wyatt.
Peruvian youth asking Wyatt for a photo
Please tell me I am taller than this girl when I stand next to Wyatt
Here are a few more shots of Sacsayhuaman...good night dear friends, and sweet dreams.
For our last Saturday here in Arequipa we decided to visit the Santa Catalina Convent. The convent is located in the historic center of Arequipa and it is considered the most important and impressive colonial structure in the city. Constructed from Sillar, a white volcanic stone quarried locally, the convent was founded in 1579, and is truly a city within a city. The nuns constructed private cells within the convent where they could lead isolated lives, protected by high walls sheltering them from the surrounding city. Most museums, or tourist sites here in Peru encourage you to have a guide, normally we prefer to do it without one, but this structure was so large, and with so much history, that I am glad we opted to have a guide show us the place. One of the many alleys within the Convent. Each street within the convent is named after a Spanish city, I think this one might have been Malaga.
Monday morning we said good bye to our nice home in Cusco, and headed to Urubamba. We walked down to the paradero, and took a "colectivo" (a large 20 person van), paid our 6 soles/per person, and rode for about an hour and a half to the town of Urubamba. According to Wikipedia, Urubamaba or Urupampa in the Quechua spelling means "flat land of spiders"....poor Maija. (We didn't tell her yet... she can wait until we leave or she reads this blog post to find out). The Sacred Valley is much warmer than Cusco, and is full of flowers. A beautiful little town
So, after I went to Rainbow Mountain on Saturday, I have a few things to say about it.Pretty, and painful. If you wanted to do it while you are in Cusco, I would suggest it only if you are a strong hiker, and if you are an intermediate hiker, I would suggest getting to the first summit and sucking on Coca leaves. Maybe get help from horses, it pays off with the view at the first summit. My dad made it to the 2nd summit. The hike down is easy and it has a good view. You see a valley with random alpacas dotting the green grass. The alpacas are fairly tame, but will still run away if you approach them too fast. Some fun facts about this Mountain are: 1. Another name for Rainbow Mountain is Vinicunca. 2. When you are on the first summit of the Mountain you are closer to the Mount Everest summit than you are to Calgary. 3.There is snow on a mountain close to Vinicunca. The roads on the second half of the way there are the scariest roads ever. And we were in...
You guys are adorable! And hilarious!
ReplyDeleteAww thanks!
DeleteThe Peruvians probably think Wyatt is the Inti!
ReplyDeleteLol