Day 7 - Lost in the Andes

So, after enjoying the many and varied sights of central Cuzco, we decided to take a pleasent day-hike into the surrounding countryside to see a few more Incan ruins. Though no reliable maps exist for the area in which we´d be hiking, we had a guidebook with instructions like "Continue along this track for about 50 meters, enough to steer clear of the houses, children and dogs, and then leave this secondary road altogether, striking off to the right and begin hiking east, skirting around fields and depressions."

What could possibly go wrong?

We began by stopping by the central plaza in Cuzco to pick up supplies like water and food for the hike. For safety, I also purchased a compass since, being an Eagle Scout, even if we got lost, I´d be able to find my way back to North America. Knowing he was probably the only outfitter in town who sold compasses at 8 AM, the shop owner was nice enough to charge us a bleeding fortune for a compass that he probably got out of a Cracker Jack box, but such is the nature of supply and demand. We then struck out North-West of the city and visited our first stop of the day.

Sacsayhuaman

Pronounced amusingly similar to "sexy woman," Sacsayhuaman was most likely a sanctuary and temple to the Sun. Only about 20% remains, thanks to the Spanish conquerors dismantling most of its stones for use elsewhere, but it´s still pretty impressive.

From Sacsayhuaman, we headed East along nicely paved roads to Qenqo Grande.

Qenqo Grande

Originally used as a temple, Qenqo Grande (not not to be confused with the more cutely titled amphitheater Qenqo Chico, which is across the street), was also a temple.

Chris on the King´s Throne, which sounds about right, and a row of stone niches for idols.

It was from Qenqo Grande that our trip became a little more interesting. To reach our next stop, we had to cut across some fields and a stream. Uncertain of whether we had actually reached our next destination (another temple complex called Cusilluchayoc), we took some pictures of a bunch of rocks that appeared to be something (as opposed to nothing) and then moved on to our next stop, the easily located and clearly signed Laqo.

The rocks that might be something.

Laqo

Originally functioning as the Temple of the Moon, Laqo served as a temple and observatory. Sadly, little remains (at least as far as we could tell) but more interesting were the archeological digs going on at the foot of the hillside. There, workers were slowly revealing the complementary Temple of the Sun, and have thus far only uncovered some foundational walls and fragments of pottery.

A woman selling trinkets nearby was also kind enough to point us in the proper direction for Cusilluchayoc, the place we´d been looking for earlier. It´s worth noting, however, that we could have just posted the random rock photo from before and none of you would have known the difference. Sadly, neither did we.

Cusilluchayoc

Partially buried underground (whether by Incans trying to hide it from the Spaniards or the Spaniards trying to cover it up, is unclear), Cusilluchayoc is a site with a variety of stone carvings, walls, rooms, etc. It was clearly something...as opposed to the earlier rocks, which I maintain were probably nothing.

Considering our difficulty finding Cusilluchayoc from the directions in our guidebook, one would think that further directions leading up and into the mountains, away from any sort of civilization, would give us reason for pause. If one thought that, one would be wrong. Without a care in the world, we crossed a stream, avoided some dogs and began climbing into the mountains. According to the guidebook, it was just two kilometers to the next site. Two kilometers along a well worn trail to the town of Chilcapuquio.

We would never see it.

The trail was not only difficult to traverse, climbing hundreds of meters into the mountains (made all the more difficult by the thinness of the air), but was also difficult to follow, with forks branching off repeatedly, none of which were mentioned by our guidebook. Thankfully, the scenery in the Andes was nothing if not impressive.

After hiking for far longer than 2 kilometers, becoming completely exhausted and finding ourselves at the base of yet another mountain, we began to get concerned. The trail had become increasingly difficult to follow, as it seemed to fade in and out the further we went. Our courage, however, was renewed when we found some horse manure and recently left garbage, meaning we were still on at least some sort of trail that had recently been used.

This, we realized, was what "rock bottom" felt like. Garbage and horse manure were what cheered us up.

We continued on and half way up the mountain the trail essentially vanished. After much deliberation (and against Chris´ better judgment) I sprinted up to the top to see what I might see on the other side. If there was nothing, we would turn back.

Peering over the mountain

Miraculously, there was a town and a paved road in the distance. We weren´t going to die in the Andes afterall, hallelujah. After spending the next 10 minutes attempting to catch my breath, I yelled down to Chris the exciting news, we met back up and made our way to the town. As it turns out this town was mentioned in our guidebook, so we asked locals for directions to the next major stop, which thankfully was a brief 30 minute walk down a well paved road.

Tambo Machay

Perhaps one of the most impressive bits of ruin we´d seen thus far, Tambo Machay is an amazingly well preserved sacred space and resting or hunting grounds used by the Incans. A natural spring still runs from the mountainside and the stone channels and fountains are still in working order 700 years (give or take) since they were built.

There was one more site on our list of places to visit on our simple, charming day hike. Puka Pukara, a sort of Incan Hotel, was within site of Tambo Machay. At that point, however, we were so tired we didn´t care and this was a close as we got. Enjoy.

And that was our brief stroll in the Andes. When we finally got back to our hostel around dinner time, the word "collapse" really isn´t sufficient to describe what we did. However, after some soup, a variety of pain medications and a good night´s sleep, we left Cuzco the next morning for Urubamba to visit the Incan agricultural laboratory Maray and the salt flats at Salineras, both of which are far more impressive than a bunch of rocks that are probably nothing. Full descriptions and pics are forthcoming, so stay tuned.

-Sean