Pisaq

Our first stop in the Sacred Valley was in the town of Pisaq.    Pisaq is a market town, famed for its Sunday fair, which is held in the town's main square, dominated by a large and venerable pisonay tree.  The tree is a distinctive feature of the town, and it has been there so long that it is nearly impossible to think of Pisaq without it.   The town is easily identifiable in early photographs because of the tree.

 

Pisaq was established by the Spanish in the 1500s but it lies at the foot of the Inca site of Pisaq.   Before asking our driver to take us up the mountain to the ruins, we did a bit of shopping, buying some masks to decorate our Lima apartment with.

In that regard I have to mention the service we received at Artesanias Pisonay on Pisaq's main square.  When we were short of cash, the owner offered to take a small deposit and deliver the masks to our hotel the next day.   Granted, by buying four of their more expensive masks, we were likely making their week's sales in one day, but Alicia, the owner, really did go out of her way to help us get what we wanted.  She made a special trip to Cusco, and arrived when she said she'd be there (in fact she apologized for being 10 mins "late", which most of time in Peru doesn't even count!)  She even brought the packing materials we had requested.

In any case, after that, we moved to visit the ruins of Inca Pisaq.

No one is quite sure who ordered Inca Pisaq built or when, but it seems likely that it was established in the the 1470s or thereabouts, and was perhaps intended to mark the Inka Pachakutiq's triumph over the tribes of the Antisuyu.   It had a clear agricultural purpose, what with its numerous terraces encompassing an area larger than Machupiqchu.   However, it also likely served a military purpose, overlooking the pass that contains the Inca roadway toward the lowlands of the Antisuyu and being marked on that side by a strong defensive wall.

Defensive wall along the southern side of Pisaq, and Amaru (serpernt) Gate

The Amaru (serpent) Gate on the path to the temple of the sun in Pisaq

Pisaq is also notable for containing the largest identified Inca cementery.  Along a cliff, set so that they face the rising sun, hundreds of Inca ossuaries are set into the cliff face.   When I visited Pisaq as a lad of 14 in 1981, there were some tombs yet unraided.   I doubt that today any are left unopened.

Inca cementery

Inca baths

Inca Pisaq's residential sector

 

The Sacred Valley

On the 6th, our 2nd day in Cusco, Liz and hired a car and driver to take into to Urubamba Valley.   We opted for doing it that way instead of joining an organized tour so that we could set the schdule ourselves, stop when we needed a break, and determine the places to visit ourselves.

The Urubamba Valley, also known as the Sacred Valley, was the breadbasket of Inca Cusco, with its mild climate and diverse ecological zones.   It was -and is- optimum land for growing corn, and Cusco corn is famed for its size and quality to this day.   The Incas lined the valley with agricultural terrraces, carrying fertile bottomland soil up the slopes by the basketful to create vertical fields, and brought in experienced maize farmers from elsewhere in the empire to settle the valley.

The Incas prized the valley as the Inca heartland, holding it as sacred.   The Inca nobility established country palaces along the valley, and built temples all along its length.  Accordingly, the valley contains a number of important Inca archaeological sites, principally Tipon, Pisaq, Ollantaytambo, Moray, and Machupiqchu.  Of these, we were to visit Pisaq and Ollantaytambo, along with the saltworks at Maras.

The Sacred Valley, viewed from Pisaq

Eastern slope of the Sacred Valley, viewed from near Maras

Cusco. Day 3.

After spending the night in Aguas Calientes (aka Machu Picchu Pueblo), we rose early to catch the train back to Ollantaytambo.

Guille, Nico, and Benji waiting for the train to Ollantaytambo


Train stop in Aguas Calientes

Aguas Calientes does not have a train station, instead the train just stops at a certain spot along Ave. Imperio de los Incas, and the conductors have people get on or off.

Luckier than the many who had to stand in line to buy tickets, we were able to get on right away and find our seats. Soon, we were back on our way back up the Urubamba Valley toward the highlands.

Urubamba Valley near Machu Picchu

Urubamba Valley near Ollantaytambo with Mt. Salcantay in the background

Ollantaytambo is a town about 75 kilometers from Cusco, at an altitude of about 2800 meters. It is located at the confluence of the Patachanca River with the Urubamba, which here takes the name Vilcanota.

The town itself, has been continuously inhabited since Inca times and the layout of the town center, and even the foundations of many buildings and the water channels that serve them are Inca.

Ollantaytambo

Ollantaytambo was a tambo, or way station, protected by a fortress on the cliffs above the town. In late 17th century there was published a play about an Inca general who rebelled against his sovereign after being denied the love of the Inca's daughter, Cusi Qoyllur. In the fictional drama, the protagonist, Ollanta, is captured and held captive in Cusco, until the next Inca, Cusi Qoyllur's brother, frees him and places him in charge of the garrison near Yucay. Since then, due to the identification of the fictional hero with the locale, it gradually became known as Ollantaytambo (Ollanta's Tambo).

The fortress at Ollantaytambo

Inca period adobe construction below the fortress

Crowning the promontory on which the fortress is built, there stands an unfinished sun temple including a colossal wall made from six pink stone megaliths, each weighing some 20 tons. These stones once bore high-relief carvings of pumas and geometric designs, but these were smashed away by Spanish priests and only faint remains of them can yet be discerned.

This is some of the finest Inca megalithic stonework, and made all the more impressive by the fact that the quarry for this stone lies several hundred feet up a slope across the valley, at Kachiqhata. After being dragged across the valley floor, the stones were then pulled up a 1200 foot ramp to the temple site.

Some stones became "weary," and "refused" to move any further, were abandoned were they lay. Many are still there, including one in the town square.

"Weary" stone in Ollantaytambo's plaza

Ollantaytambo gained in historic significance as a result of the 1536 Battle of Ollataytambo. In that year, forces led by Hernando Pizarro and his native ally, Pascaq Inca, attacked the rebellious troops led by Manco Inca, who was attempting to re-establish Inca control over Peru. Manco arrayed his forces along the fortress' ramparts, resisting the Spanish onslaught. Outmaneuvering the Spanish, Manco's forces dealt the Spanish their first and only defeat at native hands in a major engagement.

The ramparts where Manco Inca arrayed his troops

After Ollantaytambo we were taken to a restaurant down the road for a buffet lunch. We could tell the kids were hungry because they ran to the buffet and ran back to their tables, and then ran back inside for more!




From there, we were driven to the last stop of our Cusco tours, the market town of Pisaq.

Pisaq is the site of Inca ruins located atop a mountain overlooking the modern town. The ruins are interesting, but the climb is brutal. I visited the site in 1981 and found it to be well-worth visiting. Of special interest were pre-Inca chambers that dot the cliffsides to the rear of the mountain. They appear to be burial chambers, but nary a one is intact, and I have read somewhere that there is no mention in the chronicles of them or the people who made them.


Our destination on this day, however, was the town plaza, dominated by its immense and venerable pisonay tree.

Pisaq is noted as a center for the sale of the area's handicrafts, specially weavings. The town hosts three weekly fairs, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Alas, we arrived on Friday, but there was still plenty to chose from, as Juancho found out.


I purchased a couple of weavings as well, choosing a particularly handsome one to hang on the wall in the family room.


Looking around the town, Juancho and I discovered this bakery, which had the most creative cuy hutch I have ever seen.



I noticed also that, as in Quinua, the townspeople of the area decorated their roofs with clay figures.


What is insteresting, however, is that in this case, the figures are in a style associated with the town of Pucara, several hundred kilometers to the south, in Puno.


After shopping, we headed out of town at rush hour.