Another tour today. Not my preference, but it seems like the only way to see a lot in the small amount of time that I have without the huge expense of renting a car, let a one driving a car in Peru, which seems pretty dangerous noticing how people drive.
I sat next to a former Brazilian model who regaled me of tales of the modeling world, which sound horrific, throughout the tour. A lot of eating disorders, suicide, and depression. No surprises there, I suppose. After several years, she quit – she seemed much too sweet for such a cut throat world.
After climbing and climbing the mountains, I saw the valley floor drop below me the jagged peaks meet my gaze. Once again, the Andean countryside was beautiful. Deep verdant valleys nestling rambling rivers, towering mountains in shades of purple and blue violet and lush green. The dimension and grandeur of it all so vast that whole scenes seemed to simply flatten out like something in a postcard.
We arrived at the town of Pisac and were lead into a massive street market, maze like and seemingly endless. Hundreds and hundreds of stalls, each generally offering the same crafts – weavings, shawls, tow llamas, silver jewelry and similar items. I kept wondering how all of these people survived, even in high season. Obviously, competition was fierce. I guess most of these crafts don’t have a shelf life so they can just sit for years and years until someone buys them. Still, with so many vendors, it seems like you would be lucky to sell one item in a day – and how does that really impact how you provide for your family? Being already burned out from being sold to, I made my out of the market area as soon as I could and walked around the town of Pisac, which is fundamentally one main street and some smaller alleys or side streets. Locals, many in traditional clothing, sat on the side of the street, waiting for small vans that served as public transportation between towns and villages in the area. Pisac is nestled in a small enclosure of valley with mountains shooting up at steep angles around it, creating the borders of the town.
The next stop was the Pisac ruins. In the cliffs surrounding the pre-Incan structures were holes, hundreds of them, as if drilled in the side of the cliffs. These holes were actually grave sites that, at one time, contained mummies of the middle class of the city. The dead were preserved by removing the organs from the body and stuffing them with herbs, llama wool, and cotton. They were put in a fetal position in the cliffs so that they were in the correct position to be reborn into the next world.
About 5000 residents lived in old Pisac and each resident or family of residents lived on different levels of the city denoting their class. The labor class at the bottom, the tradesmen in the middle, and the privileged class and holy people at the top.
The remains of stone buildings were like skeletons, dried grey still bones of a dead city once alive with industry, trade, science, spiritual practice, and of the beauty and suffering of the human experience.
The site many stepped areas and archeologists believe, like at Maras Moray, that these steps were used for experimenting with growing different crops of corn, beans, grains, and potatoes. The steps also were useful in their irrigation practices. Additionally, at the topmost level, archeologists discovered a large collection of guinea pig bones perhaps indicating that there was experimentation with animals also happening.
As we left, I noticed the mountain next to the site. It was a crouching giant, sleeping an ancient sleep until it would be awakened again by some cataclysmic geological happening.
After Pisac ruins, we visited Ollontaytambo, another pre-Incan ruin. The central part of the site, archeologists believe, is constructed using steps that form the shape of a llama, which was believed to be the symbol for production and productivity. On the opposite mountain from the central site are several other structures, one being an observatory, the other a large storehouse or “refrigerator” used for storing food at cooler temperatures, and another ruin, which sadly I didn’t write down so don’t recall its use. On the side of mountain where those structures are built is a rock formation that is the profile visage of an Incan warrior. Archeologists believe that this was not carved, but was actually a natural formation. The people of Ollontaytambo discovered this and used the formation in their construction. Namely, on June 21 (also known as the Summer Solstice), between 11am and 12noon, the sun rounds the corner of the mountain and shine just level with the face of the Incan warrior and as that happens, the beam shines from the warrior into a temple window and directly at a sacred fountainhead within the temple.
All very Indiana Jones, yes?
At the pinnacle of the central area of the site is the temple of the Sun. This impressive ruin is comprised of massive smooth rock blocks fit together with impressive accuracy, order, and beauty. The rocks are so perfectly fitted, not even a knife can be placed between them. They’re smooth, like they’ve been put in a gigantic rock tumbler. Faint memories of carvings are present in the rock – carvings that represent Pachamama, or as we call her, Mother Earth. Amazingly, these massive rocks were quarried over seven kilometers away, at the pinnacle of a neighboring mountain, which can be seen from the temple site. The colossal rocks were broken from the mountain and transported downhill using a series of gullies that were created specifically for this purpose. But how did they get the giant rocks back up the steep hill to the temple site? They carved massive ramps in the mountain leading up to the temple site and placed rolling stones beneath the giant rocks too push them up the hill. Needless to say, the size of the human workforce to accomplish all this was sizeable, archeologists believe. Workers would have to have traveled from many miles around to work on these structures. The whole operation seems incredibly impressive.
On the way home, the sun began setting on the snow capped mountains, putting them to rest for another night in the antideluvian cycle of the world.
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