More Peru

I posted about crafty Peru a couple of months ago with the intention of doing another post shortly thereafter about the places we saw in general.  Well that didn't happen as quickly as I'd planned, but here, finally, is Peru Part II.

I'll concentrate on Machu Picchu in this post since this is the reason we wanted to go to Peru.  I will say that as I researched the country and travelled to a few other areas, there are a lot of other reasons to go to Peru and it is still on my wish list for a return visit at some point. There is still more to see.

Despite seeing thousands of pictures of Machu Picchu, including the one shown here that is everywhere, nothing prepared me for the sheer awesomeness of the place.  Our travelling companions did not want to hike the Inca Trail so we took the train to Machu Picchu Peublo instead.  Since we had a limited time budget, this method of travel provided us with an opportunity to spend more time seeing other things besides Machu Picchu - Lima, extra time in Cuzco and the Sacred Valley.

When we arrived at Machu Picchu, it was fairly early in the morning and the clouds still hung over the mountains.  There was a feeling of peace, calm and quiet hanging over the place despite the many tourists and the cheers from the Inca Trail walkers coming into the site from above.  As we rounded the corner of this pathway onto the site, I was hit with a combination of wonder at the site itself and the feeling of "I can't believe I'm actually here".  There is an aura there that I have felt at other ancient places; Stonehenge is an example.  I can imagine that the people who were there all of those years ago still inhabit the place somehow.

We had an excellent tour guide (we used Gap Adventures and had guides limited to the four of us for 95% of the organized part of the trip) who told us a lot about the known history and the theories of how the site came to be.

These ancient sites were very well built.  This is earthquake country and the sites were built to withstand the tremors.  In Cuzco, the gateway city to Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley, there are Spanish buildings on top of Inca ruins.  When earthquakes hit, the Spanish buildings were destroyed but the Inca foundations were still standing.

The Inca people built these terraces for growing crops.  Different crops were on different levels of the terraces depending on the altitude they could best grow at.  The terraces were carefully placed during building to ensure the correct amount of sunlight for growing and had irrigation systems built in.

 As an aside, Peru has hundreds of kinds of potatoes and many kinds of corn.  Compare that to the grocery store here where you can get about 4 or 5 different kinds of potatoes on a good day.

The roofs were added to these buildings to approximate what they would have looked like in Inca times.  The quality of construction of the buildings depended on the intended use of the building.  The stones of temples and royal houses were very carefully assembled and the stones are smooth and very evenly joined.  Other buildings of less importance were roughly finished.

There is so much more to say about Machu Picchu than my 30 second tour in this post.  I would recommend a visit here to anyone.  Peru, in general, is beautiful.  The people that we met were extremely friendly and the weather was fantastic.  If it's on your travel wish list, make sure you go.  If it isn't on your list, consider adding it.  At the very least, it's worth checking out your local library for a book on the Inca people to learn some of their fascinating history.