Sacred Valley Tour

We got up early and started towards the airport around 5 AM. We were taking the flight to Cusco today around 7:30 AM. Marco was the guide accompanying us to the airport. The LAN domestic flight was on time, and reached cusco around 8:45 AM.

At Cusco, we were received by Raquel, and our guide Alvoro, and driver Hector. Raquel briefed us on the tour schedule for the next 3 days and left. It was a private tour service, and it served us well because we could tailor the schedule to our needs. First we were hungry, so we told Alvoro that we wanted some breakfast. Alvoro took us to a juice and sandwich shop at main square in cusco. The menu was in Spanish, and I ordered an item "pan con jam y queso". I asked confirmation from Alvoro if it was "Bread with Jam and Cheese", and he said yes. Unfortunately, the jam is ham in Spanish [j is silent], and we could not have the bread. We just had some fresh mango and orange juice and gave the breads to our guide and driver.

We then started in our jeep towards Pisac, one of the towns in the Sacred Valley. En route, we visited a local handicrafts market (which was very expensive). They had a small zoo of llamas, alpacas, vicunas etc which were native South American animals.

 

 

 

Then we see the locals making some handicrafts. They had kept exhibits of potatoes, corns [lots of them].

 

Varieties of corn

Varieties of potatoes

Locals making the wool dresses

 

After this we headed to Pisac. Pisac was a nice little town, and its streets were very narrow. First we visited the local market. Later we went to Prasada, a Hare Krishna restaurant for lunch. The restaurant owner was a humble guy from Miami who is now living here, because he thought it was a much better spiritual place. He has his name rechristened to some Das :) We were the only customers at that time, and we had an awesome potato soup, and curry rice. We only decided to take food as parcel for dinner and got a quesadilla and veg stir fry packed. After this we visited the tourist market.

 

 

Streets in Pisac

At the local market, we purchased few bananas here

At the touristy market, with Alvoro

Inside Prasada, heavenly!!

 

 

Then we started towards Ollaytantambo, one of the oldest Inca cities. Most tourists to Machu Picchu visits the sacred valley because the train to Machu Picchu starts at Ollaytantambo. Here it started becoming windier and cold. The ruins were decent [not as spectacular as some ruins we see back home in India like Mahabalipuram]. Still good to visit. We saw the terraces and the various temples here.

The ruins at Ollaytantambo



After this we went to the train station to change the next day's tickets from 6:30 pm to 1:30 Pm. Machu Picchu usually takes only 4-5 hours, and we did not want to come back late to cusco the next day. Luckily tickets were available and it was just 1$ change fee.

Our guides now left us and went their way back to cusco. We had around 1.5 hours left for the train, and we were just roaming around the shops near the train station. We got to taste some really good Peruvian corn near the station. The train was very touristy, clean and luxurious. But leg space was lacking in the expedition class, but it was fine for a 1.5 hour journey. After the train journey all in the dark, we checked-in into Inti Punku hotel, which was just a 2 min walk from the station.

The ticket counter

Some nice Peruvian corn near the station

Inside the expedition class train


When we were checkin in, our guide for the next day came to meet us to fix a time for the Machu Picchu tour. We decided to meet around 6:45 AM next day to visit when it was less crowded. Then we slept off.