We booked ourselves on a day trip around the nearby sacred valley today. It was pretty much a bus trip around the Rio Urubamba which is only 15km from Cusco. One of the highlights was the Pisac market. Although dominated with tourist stalls there was still a traditional Andean market where local picked up corn, chicken, potatoes and other stables.
After lunch we visited Ollantaytambo which was an amazing set of Inca ruins. Incidentally this is one of the only places that Spanish forces were beaten by the Incas during the Spanish conquest. The area is surrounded by immense area of aricultraul terracing. At the top of a section of this was some sort of religious centre which showcased the inca’s incredible building technology. They used to stack the boulder perfectly on top of each other in such a way that they are almost impossible to take down. Also they developed a sort of clamping process by cutting holes in each of the rocks and pouring melted metal to fuse the two rocks together a bit like a staple.
Later we travelled to Chinchero which was our highest altitude yet 3762m. The 400m extra than Cusco was noticeable but fortunately we able to sit down and watch local weavers while drinking coca tea to recover a bit. After that we were treated to amazing views of the mountain and surprisingly loads of surrounding farming plains for this distance above sea level.