We woke up at 7 am on Sunday and checked out of our hotel. We left our suitcases with the hotel. Our Sacred Valley tour bus was late and only arrived after we called them from the hotel lobby. They picked us half an hour late at 8:45 am and it turned out that they had sent a Spanish language tour. The Spanish-speaking guide somehow managed to explain to us with hand gestures that we should board the bus and at the first stop, he will transfer us to an English tour. We stopped at a small market and were transferred to an English tour. However, since it was last minute, we got the worst seats and sat in different rows. In short, the day didn't start off on the best note.
We made another quick stop at the Pisac market which was more of a sales pitch by a jewelry store. They showed us how pure silver is mixed with copper to make it possible to create silver jewelry. Then we drove on and stopped at the first archaeological site called Pisac. It's an old town of Incan times that had two sectors - an agricultural staircase-steps-like terraces and a residential area. Again, the architectural expertise of the Incans was on display.
Then we drove for an hour to Urubamba valley where we had a buffet lunch. It must be mentioned that being a Sunday, there were at least 50 other tour buses just like ours carrying 30 people each doing the same circuit so everywhere we went, it was very slow. The buffet might have been okay but because there were too many people, we barely got one serving and the food had limited options, mostly potatoes in various forms.
After the Urubamba lunch, our next stop was at Ollantaytambo and it was easily the best site of the day. These are ruins of an old town that was named after General Ollanta of the Incan army. We had to climb some 300 stairs to get to the top with a few stops in between. At each stop, we were told some bits about Incan history which we had already been told by our earlier guides in the Cusco city tour and Machu Picchu. An interesting reason why this location was chosen to build this town is a natural rock formation on the mountain overlooking the town that looks like the face of a bearded man! Locals believed that this mountain was the protector of this land which made the town a safe place to inhabit. There was a traffic jam when our tour bus was trying to leave and it took us half an hour to just get out of the parking lot. Apart from the ruins and the overlooking mountain-man that we saw, another special thing about the town of Ollantaytambo is that it is an example of an active Incan town - people are still living in houses/buildings from the Incan times (with periodic renovations, of course).
Our next stop of Chinchero was also an interesting one since we were given demonstrations by Quechua women of how they are still practicing Incan traditions and using the same handcrafting skills. We were shown how dyes of different colors are produced from naturally occurring substances and are then used to color textiles. The demonstrating girl was quite funny. There were stalls by different families displaying their products. We bought a couple of things that we liked.
At that point, it was 6:45 pm and our tour guide asked people if they would like to make an optional stop at a church. Some people were interested so he took them to see the church but we told him to arrange us to be driven back to Cusco since we wanted to have dinner before catching our overnight bus to Puno. The transfer bus that we got had an extremely entertaining guide and that's when we realized that our day could have been a lot better only if we had had a more organized tour operating company. Oh well, we did manage to see all the sites in the original itinerary for the day so I guess it's all good. The guide of our temporary ride to Cusco even sang songs (including the famous "La Bamba") and asked everyone where they are from and then narrated a small story about each country.
In Cusco, we walked straight to Green's restaurant (where we had experienced the best food of the trip a couple of days earlier) and had another exceptional meal. After dinner, we got a cab to the hotel and picked up our suitcases. The cab dropped us off at the bus station.
The overnight bus was beyond our expectations and we're glad that we got the first-class seats. Apart from huge and super comfortable reclining leather seats, we were also given blankets and headphones. A small snack tray and tea were also provided. We had the tea, stowed away the cheese bun sandwiches in our bag and got ready to sleep.
We made another quick stop at the Pisac market which was more of a sales pitch by a jewelry store. They showed us how pure silver is mixed with copper to make it possible to create silver jewelry. Then we drove on and stopped at the first archaeological site called Pisac. It's an old town of Incan times that had two sectors - an agricultural staircase-steps-like terraces and a residential area. Again, the architectural expertise of the Incans was on display.
Then we drove for an hour to Urubamba valley where we had a buffet lunch. It must be mentioned that being a Sunday, there were at least 50 other tour buses just like ours carrying 30 people each doing the same circuit so everywhere we went, it was very slow. The buffet might have been okay but because there were too many people, we barely got one serving and the food had limited options, mostly potatoes in various forms.
After the Urubamba lunch, our next stop was at Ollantaytambo and it was easily the best site of the day. These are ruins of an old town that was named after General Ollanta of the Incan army. We had to climb some 300 stairs to get to the top with a few stops in between. At each stop, we were told some bits about Incan history which we had already been told by our earlier guides in the Cusco city tour and Machu Picchu. An interesting reason why this location was chosen to build this town is a natural rock formation on the mountain overlooking the town that looks like the face of a bearded man! Locals believed that this mountain was the protector of this land which made the town a safe place to inhabit. There was a traffic jam when our tour bus was trying to leave and it took us half an hour to just get out of the parking lot. Apart from the ruins and the overlooking mountain-man that we saw, another special thing about the town of Ollantaytambo is that it is an example of an active Incan town - people are still living in houses/buildings from the Incan times (with periodic renovations, of course).
Our next stop of Chinchero was also an interesting one since we were given demonstrations by Quechua women of how they are still practicing Incan traditions and using the same handcrafting skills. We were shown how dyes of different colors are produced from naturally occurring substances and are then used to color textiles. The demonstrating girl was quite funny. There were stalls by different families displaying their products. We bought a couple of things that we liked.
At that point, it was 6:45 pm and our tour guide asked people if they would like to make an optional stop at a church. Some people were interested so he took them to see the church but we told him to arrange us to be driven back to Cusco since we wanted to have dinner before catching our overnight bus to Puno. The transfer bus that we got had an extremely entertaining guide and that's when we realized that our day could have been a lot better only if we had had a more organized tour operating company. Oh well, we did manage to see all the sites in the original itinerary for the day so I guess it's all good. The guide of our temporary ride to Cusco even sang songs (including the famous "La Bamba") and asked everyone where they are from and then narrated a small story about each country.
In Cusco, we walked straight to Green's restaurant (where we had experienced the best food of the trip a couple of days earlier) and had another exceptional meal. After dinner, we got a cab to the hotel and picked up our suitcases. The cab dropped us off at the bus station.
The overnight bus was beyond our expectations and we're glad that we got the first-class seats. Apart from huge and super comfortable reclining leather seats, we were also given blankets and headphones. A small snack tray and tea were also provided. We had the tea, stowed away the cheese bun sandwiches in our bag and got ready to sleep.
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