Today was full of ups and downs. The cold has seemed to take full effect of my body and cause me to feel almost to the point of death as the day wore on, but knowing I was going to have the opportunity to see ancient ruins of the Inca is what got me out of bed this morning. The sheer excitement and boyish smile I had on my face as I was at both Saqsaywaman and Pisac. I knew no matter how I felt today, I was going and nothing was going to stop me.
The walk to ProPeru this morning was a little brutal. It seemed cold, but as soon as I had my jacket on, I was hot. Weather doesn't agree with me sometimes. Add that with the fact that I was blowing my nose every 2 minutes and I had quite the winning combination in my favor. However arriving at Saqsaywaman definitely started the day off on the right foot. The views from there were so amazing! You could see the entire city of Cusco from the ruins! It was something I will never forget. It almost seemed as if the city stretched on forever into the mountains. I was able to point out some important landmarks of the city and take photos of them (soccer stadium, Plaza de Armas, etc.)
The grand mystery behind Saqsaywaman is how the city was built and for what purpose. Some of the stones that were there were of incredible sizes. The main foundation of the ruins were at least one and a half times taller than me (not too hard to do), but weighed unbelievable amounts of weight. Some believe and have written books about aliens building this ancient ritual site. But, for now, I will believe that the Incas built it as our guide told us.
Pisac, I would have to say, was even better than Saqsaywaman. Pisac is a little town nestled in the Sacred Valley in Peru. In Pisac, there is a market at never seemed to end. Any way you look, there are little booths set up, and for as long as we walked through them, they never seemed to end. I was fortunate enough to buy a couple of instruments to play in my spare time as well as a gift for Amy. I think she will be proud. Our next stop was lunch. However, at this point, I could not focus on much else other than how much pain my body was in and how much I am going to hate not tasting my food. There was a buffet style room set up for us on the second floor of a very quaint restaurant, and as I imagined, I could not taste anything. So, I went ahead and gobbled down my meal and drank some tea hoping I had eaten enough.
The Incan ruins at Pisac were....indescribable. There were huge terraces for agriculture, urban areas that were home to thousands of Incas, and so much more. We passed by the side of a mountain where there were literally thousands upon thousands of graves that were carved into the mountain. As far as you could see, there were little holes where part of an ancient civilization was buried. Being a history buff, you can imagine how happy I was to see that. However, our ultimate goal was to climb to the top of the ruins, and we were not going to fail. Our guide told us we had 20 minutes to roam and take pictures. As soon as we heard that, we took off. Finding the stairs or paths to continue of the mountain was difficult at times and the steep slope posed problems of its own. But, we eventually made our way up to the top, took some pictures, and were intrigued by an even higher point that was more difficult to get to. We had to rock climb as well as jump from rocks, but we got there. I was very pleased at our success and even had the chance to frolic on a little patch of grass at the top of the mountain. The views were stunning. Everywhere you looked you wanted to take a picture. Obviously, that was not possible, but I took as many mental photographs as I could as well as real photographs. The combination of the two should suffice I would think.
The moment I returned home, after walking from the ProPeru office, I went straight to the bed and fell asleep until dinner. That coupled with the 8 hours I slept at night will hopefully help me kick this cold in the butt and get better soon. I do NOT want to be sick when we visit Macchu Picchu next weekend!
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