My trip to Peru, Brasil and Chile 2013: second week Peru

Urubamba second day

Today I hired a taxi and went to see the Salinas, where thousands of so called salt pans, little pools which are build in terraces on the slope of a mountain, are used for salt extraction of the very salty water that comes from the mountain and so have been used since Inca times. The salty water is diverted to these pans and there evaporated in the dry season. Here a picture to see them from close by.

And here more of an overview, just of part of them

And that's how it looks when you hike in between them

The scenery surrounding the Salinas is also beautiful

Another very interesting place I visited today is Moray. It is an ancient Inca site where they built an amphitheater like terracing . Different levels of concentric terraces are carved into a huge earthen bowl, each layer of which has its own microclimate. Supposedly the Incas used them to acclimatize different plants to different climate. For example, Coca, that originally grew in a warm climate, was planted at the bottom where it is warmest and slowly moved up a level at a time to get it used to colder climate, and the contrary with potatoes, which they tried to acclimatize to warmer regions. Here the view from the top:

And that's what it looks like when you hike to the bottom:

It is interesting the way they built the steps to get from one terrace to the next, just larger stones sticking out of the wall. You can see this in all Inca terrasses.

The scenery on the way is gorgeous. You ascend from Urubamba up to about 3500 meters. On the vast plateau there is the little village of Maras. The mountains you see from this plateau are so beautiful

This is the view when descending back to Urubamba. I am fascinated by the vegetation at this height. It makes the mountain look as if t were covered by a green velvet .

Must show you some more of this place I fell in love with

Today I found out that the owner of this cute eco lodge where I am staying is a medical doctor. She now works mostly as a midwife. She studied medicine to have her diploma but never wanted to work in allopathic medicine. She grows a lot of medicinal plants and organic vegetables in her garden. She told me that cervix cancer and breast cancer rates are increasing a lot among the indigenous women. The government forces them to have a hormone shot every 3 months to prevent pregnancy after they have 1-2 children. That s worse than n China. And these poor women never learned to defend themselves. It is so sad. She also told me. That she treated several patients who had melanoma with a pmade made of sanguinaria and another plant whose name she only knows in Quechua, as she leaned it from the Quechua. It is so interesting, as Eli Jones already used Sanguinaria for the treatment of cancerous tumours and this plant is also use by Ingrid Neyman for cancerous tumours with success. She had not known any of these books.

31.1 first day in Ollantaytambo, an interesting village with very narrow streets with cobblestones, not made for cars. they have to restrict themselves to the main roads, if you can call them roads.

I walked up to an inca fortress and was so proud that i could climb so high from 2900 m., that i am getting brave enough to go up to the ruins of Pisac .

So next day I took the collectivo to Pisac, took a taxi up to the Inca ruins and made a 2,5 hours hike up to the ruins and down to Pisac. It is a truly beautiful hike. I was almost alone there.

Here one view from the hike where you can see the beautiful terraces which were used for agriculture.

And here you can see part of the fortress

On half the way down I met a nice Quechua boy who walks up and down everyday to sell his self made flutes so I got a beautiful flute concert and some explanations on the way down.

And here some more beautifully preserved Inca ruins on the way down.

It allways amazes me on what steep slopes the Incas built their temples and fortresses. How they were able to do this with the tools they had at this time, how they moved those huge heavy stones over such distances. It remains a mistery.

On February 3 I took the train from Ollanta to Aquas Calientes, or, as they call it, Machu Picchu Pueblo. Peruvian Railways was bought by a foreign company and they exploit the tourists so shamelessly, that I would rather track to Machu Picchu next time than go with them. For a train ride of one hour and 15 minutes the cheapest ticket one way is $57 in. A country where the average salary is $125 a month. And half of the so called window seats have no windows but a wall and you cannot choose your seat when you buy the ticket. So that was my most negative experience in Peru so far.

The train swings left and right more than a boat on stormy sea, but the scenery, as much as I could sea from the lousy place I was sitting, is beautiful.

The Urubamba river fascinates me. It is the wildest river I have ever seen, full of rapids.

Freddy, whom I rented a room from in Aquas Calientes was supposed to pick me up from the train station as he confirmed one daybefore my arrival but when I arrived he was not there. A kind woman helped me to find my hostel. Freddy said he was sorry, his internet was not working. I suppose he forgot he had confirmed my mail the day before! He promised to wake me at 4:30 as I wanted to get up to machu Picchu with the first bus, to get some photos before the thousands of tourists come.

Well, I woke up at 2:30, and at 4:40 I went down to the dining room and woke Freddy, who was sleeping on the sofa. He was so kind and made me breakfast and a delicious sandwich to take with me for lunch.

When I arrived at 5 at the bus station to go up to Machu Picchu, there were already about 40 people waiting for the first bus at 5:30. I got into the second bus , and came in time to enjoy great part of the ruins for myself, as the place is huge and you can find lots of places where you are alone at this time. I even had the honour to meat a sweet mountain rabbit or something like this before the tourists scared him away.

When I arrived it was still foggy, which gave the place a special misterious look. There are no words to describe this place and the beauty of the scenery around. No fotos can give you the idea of this beauty, just of little parts of it but not the overwhelming whole.

In Machu Picchu not only the ruins are spectacular, also the ecenery is stunning. Machu Picchu is surrounded by fantastic high mountains on all sides. Down in the valley, the river Urubamba surrounding my fvorite mountain.

I spent 11 hours in Machu Picchu, from 6 until 5 in the afternoon. The groups with their guides came for 2 hours and went away. How can anyone stay only 2 hours at such a place! If I wanted an explanation somewhere, I just stood and waited a few minutes for a guide with his group to come and listened to him. It was quite amusing, as every guide told something else, made up his own stories. I followed 3 older Americans with their private guide for some time and found out that he charged them $60 for 2 hours, and his explanations where of the kind "we don't know what this building was used for" or " this might have been a temple" etc.

I must insert at least several photos to give you a little bit of an idea of this fascinating place.

and looking down in the morning

let me just give you some impressions

and II had so much fun with a group of Lamas who were around the ruins..

They are such swet creatures I learned that

the difference between lamas and alpacas is that lamas have longer ears. I suppose there are some more, but this are the instructions for tourists to distinguish them.

And here you get an idea of the surrounding scenery which usually doesn't show on postcards.

And I can't resist adding this picture of this adorable couple

And this is one of the classical postcard motives, only here adorned with clouds.

I just love that place, couldn't stop taking pictures.

And this is Wayna Picchu.

It is amazing how the Incas managed to build such houses and temples in such a place. Most stunning for me is the fortress they build on top of Wayna Picchu, on amazingly steep slopes I cannot imagine how anyone could do that, especially at this time.

When I bought the entrance ticket to Machu Picchu I also bought a ticket to go up to Wayna Picchu. They let only 400 persons aday go up, 200 starting at 7 and 200 starting at 10. When I came at 10,- they only let one or two persons in at a time, about every 5 minutes, so it wont get cowded. When I arrived there at 10 and looked up at Wayna Picchu and the people climbing the extremely steep ascend On the left side of this picture I asked myself why on earth I should want to go up there. But I went. I did not believe I'd make it to the top, but I did! There are 1400 stairs going up, some extremely narrow and steep. I was really glad I only heard a tourist guide telling his group that over 23 people died in the last years climbing Wayna Picchu after I came back. I would have never gone up if I had known this or seen the photos another traveller made and put in the internet. Now I understand why every person who goes up has to register in a book with full name, adress, etc. and also after he comes down, sign that he is back, so they know who hasn't made it!!!

Have a look at http://static.gemrockauctions.com/uploads/content/content_1341533573.jpg

That was real scary, especially going down!

Here the view down on the way

And this is almost on the top:

Notice the extremely steep slopes on which they built at this height!

And these are the ruins of Machu Picchu as seen from Wayna Picchu, which is 2693 m. High, the Inka city of Machu Picchu is 2453 M. High.

And that is me near the top.

On the left side of this pictures you can see some of the stairs leading down. When I was climbing down the steepest stairs on the top I was so busy holding on and figuring out how to get down that I even did not think of making any pictures. These are the stairs on the link I inserted above.

And this after I made it down alive.