The Sacred Valley

 

The bus tour takes you to the Pisac market which has a wide variety of handicrafts and souvenirs; they are however mostly the same as you find in Cusco. It's fun to stroll around the market though and there's not great pressure to buy anything.

Ollantaytambo is about 2½ hours from Cusco. The town is located at the foot of the Inca ruins The temple area is at the top of steep terracing which helped to provide excellent defences. Ollantaytambo became the only place ever to have resisted an attack from the Spanish, although the Spanish were eventually victorious. The complex was still under construction at the time of the conquest and was never completed.

It is thought that Sacsayhuamán was an Inca fortress overlooking Cusco, although the location is unusual for a fortress and some believe it may have been a temple of sun worship. Because Sacsayhuamán is hard for foreigners to pronounce, the locals tell tourists to refer to the area as "Sexy Woman".

The wall is the most impressive section, built with enormous carved limestone boulders and running for hundreds of yards. It's difficult to visualise how Sacsayhuamán would have looked before the Spanish conquest as stone was taken from the site for construction until the 1930s.

The steep terracing at Ollantaytambo

Sacsayhuamán